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HOW WE ELECTED 

LINCOLN 

PERSONAL 

RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN 

AND MEN OF HIS TIME 



CY 
ABRAM J. piTTENHOEFER 

A CAMPAIGNER FOR LINCOLN 

IN 1860 AND A LINCOLN 

ELECTOR IN 1864 




HARPER & BROTHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 






BOOKS ABOUT LINCOLN 

LINCOLN AND THE SLEEPING SENTINEL 
By Lucius E. Chittenden 

RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN 

AND HIS ADMINISTRATION | 

By Lucius E. Chittenden * 

HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN. By A. J. Dittenhoefer j 

THE TOY SHOP. By Margarita Spalding Gerrt 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Charles C. Coffin /j 

REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN \ 

By Allen Thorndike Rice ', 

LINCOLN'S OWN STORIES. By Anthony Gross \ 



HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 




How Wb Elected Lincoln 



Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothera 

Printed in the United States of America 

Published September, 1916 



CU438437 

"Ha, I , 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Man — Lincoln 1 

II. Lincoln's Introduction to the East 14 

III. How Lincoln Was First Nominated 20 

IV. How Lincoln Was First Elected 34 

V. The Journey to the Capital 41 

VI. Stories and Incidents 47 

VII. Four Years of Stress and Strain 55 

VIII. The Renomination 71 

IX. Thb Campaign of 1864 85 



PREFACE 



This book offers my personal recollections of 
the immortal Emancipator, and of the memorable 
campaigns of 1860 and 1864, in which, as a young 
man, I was actively engaged. 

In looking back upon a life of fourscore years 
I find no prouder memories than those of the 
years 1860-65. They illumined my being, and 
my life became inspired through association with 
the immortal Abraham Lincoln and the great men 
of the anti-slavery conflict. 

I am unwilling to allow these reminiscences to 
go forth without giving credit to my old friend 
Julius Chambers, for the valuable assistance he 
rendered in compiling them. 




HOW WE ELECTED 
LINCOLN 



HOW WE ELECTED 
LINCOLN 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

CIRCUMSTANCES brought to me personal 
knowledge of Mr. Lincoln for nearly four 
years. I had frequent interviews with him, and 
so was able to form a well-considered estimate 
of the great Emancipator's character and per- 
sonality. 

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, of Demo- 
cratic pro-slavery parents, I was brought in early 
youth to New York; and although imbued with the 
sentiments and antipathies of my Southern en- 
vironment, I soon became known as a Southerner 
with Northern principles. At that time there were 
many Northern men with Southern principles. 

The city of New York, as I discovered upon 
reaching the age of observation, was virtually an 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

annex of the South, the New York merchants 
having extensive and very profitable business rela- 
tions with the merchants south of the Mason and 
Dixon line. 

The South was the best customer of New York. 
I often said in those days, "Our merchants have 
for sale on their shelves their principles, together 
with their merchandise." 

An amusing incident occurred to my knowl- 
edge which aptly illustrates the condition of 
things in this pro-slavery city. A Southerner came 
to a New York merchant, who was a dealer in 
brushes and toilet articles, and offered him a large 
order for combs. The New York merchant, as it 
happened, was a Quaker, but this was not known 
to the Southerner. The latter made it a con- 
dition, in giving this large order, that the Quaker 
merchant should exert all his influence in favor of 
the South. The Southerner wished to do some- 
thing to offset the great agitation headed by the 
abolitionists which had been going on for years in 
the North for the extinction of slavery in the 
South. The Quaker merchant coolly replied that 
the South would have to go lousy for a long 
time before he would sell his combs to them under 
any such conditions. 

Another occurrence that took place at an earlier 
period still further illumines this intense pro- 
slavery feeling. When Wendell Phillips, to my 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

mind one of the greatest orators of America, de- 
livered a radical and brilliant anti-slavery speech 
at the old Tabernacle, situated in Broadway below 
Canal Street, the hall was filled with pro-slavery 
shouters; they rotten-egged Phillips in the course 
of his address. With some friends I was present 
and witnessed this performance. 

At nineteen I was wavering in my fidelity to the 
principles of the Democratic party, which, in the 
city of New York, was largely in favor of slavery. 

I had just graduated from Columbia College, 
which was then situated in what is now known 
as College Place, between Chambers and Murray 
I streets. At that time many of our prominent 
and wealthy families lived in Chambers, Murray, 
and Warren streets, and I frequently attended 
festivities held by the parents of the college boys 
in the old-fashioned mansions which lined those 
thoroughfares. 

Soon after leaving college I became a student 
in the law oflfice of Benedict & Boardman, occupy- 
ing offices in Dey Street, near Broadway. At 
that time the late John E. Parsons, a distinguished 
member of the New York bar, was the managing 
clerk; and Charles O'Connor, the head of the New 
York bar in that generation, and who, in later 
years, ran as an Independent candidate for the 
Presidency, was connected with that firm as 

counsel. 

3 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Sitting one day at my desk, I took up a news- 
paper, and the debate between Judah P. Benja- 
min, the rabid but eloquent pro-slavery Senator 
from Louisiana, and Benjamin F. Wade, the free- 
soil Senator from Ohio, attracted my attention. 

Benjamin had made a strong address in defense 
of slavery when Wade arose and replied. He be- 
gan his reply with some bitter and memorable 
words, words which completely changed my 
political views. 

"I have listened with intense interest," said 
he, "as I always do to the eloquent speech of my 
friend, the Senator from Louisiana — an Israelite 
with Egyptian principles." 

My father, who was a prominent merchant of 
New York in those days, and very influential with 
the German population, had urged me to become 
a Democrat, warning me that a public career, if 
I joined the Republican party, would be impossible 
in the city of New York. I felt that he was right 
in that view, as the party was in a hopeless mi- 
nority, without apparent prospect of ever being 
able to elect its candidates. 

This was absolutely plain from the fact that 
Tammany Hall controlled the entire election 
machinery in this city, there being no law at that 
time which required the registration of voters be- 
fore Election Day. Moreover, the inspectors of 

election were Tammany heelers, without any Re- 

4 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

publican representation on the election boards. 
In consequence, fraudulent voting prevailed to a 
large extent. 

And yet my convictions were irrevocably 
changed by the reading of Wade's speech in answer 
to Benjamin. It struck me with great force that 
the Israelite Benjamin, whose ancestors were en- 
slaved in Egypt, ought not to uphold slavery in 
free America, and could not do so without bringing 
disgrace upon himself. 

Having convinced my father that slavery should 
no longer be tolerated, he abandoned his old polit- 
ical associations, cast his vote for Lincoln and 
Hamlin, and remained a Republican until his 
death. 

Several years later, if I may anticipate, William 
M. Tweed, who had not yet become "Boss," but 
who had great and powerful influence in Tam- 
many Hall, besought me to join Tammany, calling 
my attention to the fact that the power of the 
Democratic party was supreme in the city of New 
York, and that the organization needed some one 
to influence the German element. 

He gave me his assurance that if I came into 
Tammany Hall I should receive prompt recogni- 
tion, and in a few years undoubtedly would become 
judge of the Supreme Court; later on I might go 
still higher up. I thanked Mr. Tweed for his 
friendly interest in me, but told him that no polit- 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

ical preferment could induce me to abandon my 
convictions and lead me to support slavery. 

When Tweed became the absolute "Boss" of 
Tammany, some years later, he renewed his re- 
quest that I should join Tammany Hall. Recur- 
ring to his previous promise, he again urged me to 
become a member of his organization; again I 
refused. 

One can hardly appreciate to-day what it 
meant to me, a young man beginning his career 
in New York, to ally myself with the Republican 
party. By doing so, not only did I cast aside all 
apparent hope of public preferment, but I also 
subjected myself to obloquy from and ostracism 
by my acquaintances, my clients, and even 
members of my own family. 

I was about twenty years of age when the first 
Republican convention met at Pittsburg. It 
succeeded the disruption of the old Whig party, 
the latter losing in public esteem on account of its 
indifiPerence toward the slavery question. 

Gen. John C. Fremont, known as the Pathfinder, 
was nominated for President, and William L. 
Dayton, of New Jersey, was nominated for Vice- 
President. The appellation of Pathfinder was 
given to Fremont because in earlier years he had 
explored the then hardly known Western terri- 
tory, with the aid of scouts and pioneers, and had 
indicated passes and routes through the mountains. 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

Though not yet of age, I stumped for Fremont 
and Dayton, making many speeches during that 
memorable campaign, and participating in several 
barbecues, which were then the usual accompani- 
ment of a political campaign. I was well received 
in the towns where I was scheduled to speak. A 
military band and a citizens' committee generally 
met me at the station, and escorted me through 
the streets to the hotel or private house in which 
it was arranged that I should stay. 

The thrilling battle-cry of that campaign was, 
"Free Speech, Free Soil, Free Men, and Fre- 
mont!" These words were shouted at all public 
meetings and in all public processions, and were 
received with the wildest enthusiasm. Indeed, the 
cry was a stump speech in itself; it still thrills me 
as I write. Like the "Marseillaise," it was a shout 
for freedom set to music. 

Fremont had served by appointment for a brief 
period as Senator from the State of California. 
His popularity as a candidate was aided by the 
fact that his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont, was 
the brilliant daughter of Thomas H. Benton, who 
for thirty years was a Senator from Missouri; and 
who, in later years, published his well-known book. 
Thirty Years in the United States Senate. In the 
later part of his career, Benton, who had been a 
strong supporter of the "peculiar institution" in 
the South, became an opponent of the extension 

T 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

of slavery in new territory. Mrs. Fremont was an 
important figure in that campaign; her name was 
always mentioned with great respect by the 
opposition speakers. 

Early in the Civil War, President Lincoln, in 
appreciation of Fremont's splendid services in the 
exploration of the West and because he had been 
the first Republican candidate for President, ap- 
pointed him commander of a portion of the Federal 
forces. On August 31, 1861, Fremont issued a 
military order emancipating the slaves of all 
persons in arms against the United States. This 
action did not meet with Mr. Lincoln's approval; 
he considered it premature, and perhaps he was 
right in that view; accordingly he directed that 
the proclamation should be withdrawn. 

I was afterward reconciled to Fremont's defeat 
in 1856, for the reason that, had he been elected, 
the probability is that Abraham Lincoln, the 
greatest figure in American history, never would 
have attained the Presidency. 

Here it may be of interest to record that in the 
convention of 1856, which nominated Fremont, 
Lincoln received one hundred and ten votes for 
the Vice-presidency, while Mr. Dayton, the suc- 
cessful candidate, had only a few more votes. 
Nevertheless, Lincoln did not achieve a national 
reputation until he engaged in the memorable 

Lincoln and Douglas debates in Illinois. 

8 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

During the Fremont campaign I sometimes 
spoke in German, especially in towns in which 
there was a large Teutonic population, and I was 
hoping that I might influence the German pop- 
ulation of New York, two-thirds of which had 
allied itself with the Democratic party. 

The most memorable event in Mr. Lincoln's 
career, after the Fremont campaign, was his ap- 
pearance in joint debate with Stephen A. Douglas, 
then known as the "Little Giant," during the 
months of August, September, and October, 1858. 
The challenge came from Lincoln, in a letter of 
July 24th, proposing the joint meetings. Seven 
debates were subsequently agreed upon to take 
place in Ottawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charles- 
ton, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton. These de- 
bates attracted great attention in all parts of the 
country, and were fully reported by the New 
York and Chicago newspapers. Robert H. Hitt, 
who afterward became charge d'affaires at Paris, 
and in later years chairman of the House Com- 
mittee on Foreign Affairs, reported stenographic- 
ally all the speeches, and gave me a vivid impres- 
sion of them. 

In the opening address at Ottawa, the "Little 
Giant" explained clearly what he meant by the 
doctrine of popular sovereignty, which he had ad- 
vocated in the United States Senate for many 
years, and which by the Free Soil people of the 



I 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

North was looked upon as merely a blind to cover 
the extension of slavery in free territory. 

Douglas had introduced bills giving Statehood 
to the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and 
commenting upon these bills he said it was not 
intended to legislate slavery into any State or 
Territory or to exclude it therefrom, but " to leave 
the people thereof entirely free to form and regu- 
late their domestic institutions as they thought 
best, subject only to the Federal Constitution." 

Now in the North the agitation to prevent the 
extension of slavery in those States was intense; 
indeed, as the question involved the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the ex- 
tension of slavery in newly acquired territory and 
which had been on the statute-book for many 
years, it became the great issue of the Republican 
party. 

Mr. Lincoln's speeches were filled with quaint 
phrases and interpolated jests. The latter always 
were apt and calculated to keep his hearers, 
friendly or antagonistic, in a good humor. In his 
Ottawa answer to Douglas's opening speech Mr. 
Lincoln asserted that any attempt to show that 
he (Lincoln) advocated "perfect social and polit- 
ical equality between the negro and the white 
man is only a specious and fantastic arrangement 
of words, by which one might prove a horse- 
chestnut was a chestnut horse." 

10 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

All Lincoln demanded for the negro was the 
right to eat the bread which his own hands had 
earned without leave of anybody. 

Lincoln was fond of quoting from the Bible 
without mentioning the fact, whereas Douglas was 
often caught differing with the Scriptures. Nat- 
urally Lincoln took advantage of his political 
opponent's lack of Biblical knowledge. 

Judge Douglas, in the debate of July 16, 1858, 
said: "Mr. Lincoln tells you in his speech made 
in Springfield, 'A house divided against itself 
cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot 
endure permanently half slave, half free. I do 
not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not 
expect the house to fall; but I do expect it to cease 
to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
the other.'" 

Judge Douglas then proceeded to use as his 
keynote of his speech Lincoln's sentence: "A 
house divided against itself cannot stand," argu- 
ing eloquently and apparently quite unaware of 
its Biblical origin. 

Referring to Judge Douglas's criticism of his 
expression, "A house divided against itself can- 
not stand," Lincoln asked: "Does the judge say 
it can stand .^ If he does, then it is a question of 
veracity not between him and me, but between 
the judge and an authority of somewhat higher 

character." 

11 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Lincoln's fondness for scriptural stories and in- 
cidents is further illustrated when, having ap- 
pointed a man to a judgeship who had been sus- 
pected of having been connected with a certain 
secret organization which was opposed to Lincoln's 
renomination, he was remonstrated with and his 
magnanimity criticized. He replied: "I suppose 

Judge , having been disappointed, did behave 

badly, but I have scriptural reasons for appointing 
him. When Moses was on Mount Sinai, getting 
a commission for Aaron, that same Aaron was at 
the foot of the mountain making a false god for 
the people to worship. Yet Aaron got the com- 
mission." 

As an answer to Douglas's doctrine of popular 
sovereignty Lincoln said that he could not under- 
stand why, in the Territories, any man should be 
"obliged to have a slave if he did not want one. 
And if any man wants slaves," argued Lincoln, 
"all other citizens in the Territory have no way of 
keeping that one man from holding them." 

He denounced fiercely the scheme of the South- 
ern slaveholders to annex Cuba as a plan to in- 
crease the slave territory. It may be recalled 
that the conference at Ostend during Buchanan's 
administration was held for that purpose. 

Horace White has published an admirable de- 
scription of his tour with these debaters. In a 
parade at Charleston thirty-two young ladies, 

12 



THE MAN — LINCOLN 

representing States of the Union, carried banners. 
This "float" was followed by a handsome young 
woman on horseback, holding aloft a burgee in- 
scribed: "Kansas, I will be free!" Upon the side 
of the float was the legend: 

Westward the star of empire takes its way; 

We girls link on to Lincoln, as our mothers did to Clay. 

Senator Douglas charged that these debates 
had been instituted for the purpose of carrying 
Lincoln into the United States Senate. Although 
Lincoln denied this, the Democrats believed there 
was some foundation for the assumption. 

The meeting at Dayton was a particularly bois- 
terous one. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a brother of 
the distinguished Owen Lovejoy, who was very 
prominent in the abolitionist agitation, had been 
assassinated there nineteen years before for his 
anti-slavery opinions, but neither of the speakers 
referred to the fact. 

To show the pro-slavery sentiment that domi- 
nated the entire Government at that time, the 
famous dictum of Chief -Justice Taney in the Dred 
Scott decision that "a negro had no rights that a 
white man was bound to respect," may appropri- 
ately be recalled. 



II 



Lincoln's introduction to the east 



A BRAHAM LINCOLN made his first public 
J^\^ appearance in New York at Cooper Union 
on the night of the 27th of February, 1860. My 
anti-slavery attitude was strengthened by that 
wonderful speech. 

My acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln began 
on the afternoon of that memorable day. I was 
presented to him at his hotel, and I venture to 
hope that I made some impression on him. This 
may have been due to the fact that at an early 
age I had taken an active part in the Republican 
campaigns, and had followed with close attention 
the Lincoln and Douglas debates as they were re- 
ported in the New York journals. Consequently 
I could talk intelligently of national politics. 

I was on hand early at the Institute that night, 
and, having a seat upon the platform, I was able to 
observe the manner of the orator as well as to 
hear every word he uttered. The way in which 
he carried himself before the large audience that 

14 



INTRODUCTION TO THE EAST 

filled every nook and corner of that underground 
hall is engraven on my mind. He was a very 
homely man. Indeed, he often referred to his 
homeliness himself. His tall, gaunt body was like 
a huge clothed skeleton. So large were his feet 
and so clumsy were his hands that they looked 
out of proportion to the rest of his figure. No 
artistic skill could soften his features nor render 
his appearance less ungainly, but after he began 
to talk he was awkwardness deified. 

In repose, as I saw him on many subsequent 
occasions, his face seemed dull, but when animated 
it became radiant with vitalized energy. 

No textual report of his Cooper Institute ad- 
dress can possibly give any idea of its great ora- 
torical merits. Mr. Lincoln never ranted, but 
gave emphatic emphasis to what he wished es- 
pecially to "put across" by a slowness and marked 
clearness of enunciation. His voice was unpleas- 
ant, almost rasping and shrill at first. Perhaps 
this was due to the fact that he found it necessary 
to force it. A little later, he seemed to control his 
voice better, and his earnestness invited and easily 
held the attention of his auditors. 

To summarize the seven thousand words spoken 
by Mr. Lincoln on that great occasion would be 
a diflScult task and could not be successfully at- 
tempted in these reminiscences. I will only state 
that his theme was "slavery as the fathers viewed 

15 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

it." Its delivery occupied more than an hour, its 
entire purpose being to show that the fathers of 
the RepubHc merely tolerated slavery where it 
existed, since interference with it would be re- 
sisted by the South; moreover, recognition of the 
legality of slavery in those States had been the 
inducement offered to them to enter the Union. 

Mr. Lincoln, however, indicated that he was 
unalterably and inflexibly opposed to the exten- 
sion of slavery in territory in which it did not 
exist. 

Mr. Lincoln began with a quotation from one 
of Senator Douglas's speeches, in which the 
"Little Giant" asserted that the framers of the 
Constitution understood the slavery question as 
well as, or better than, their descendants. He 
brilliantly traced the origin and growth of democ- 
racy under the various forms that preceded the 
final adoption of the Constitution. 

As it appeared to an abolitionist in principle, 
the speaker handled the slavery question some- 
what cautiously, chiefly condemning the con- 
templated repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and 
opposing the extension of slavery into Territories 
and States where it did not exist. The appeal that 
he made to the reason and the common sense of 
the Southerner was forcible. He denied that the 
Republicans of the North were sectional, or that 
they blamed the present generation of the South 

16 



INTRODUCTION TO THE EAST 

for the existence of slavery. He went out of his 
way to condemn the John Brown raid, asserting 
that the Repubhcan party had no sympathy with 
that foolhardy enterprise. He compared the John 
Brown raid to the previous outbreak at South- 
ampton, Virginia, under the negro, Nat Turner, in 
which sixty white people, mostly women and 
children, were destroyed. He denounced the dec- 
laration of the Southern people that Northern anti- 
slavery men had instigated the John Brown incur- 
sion at Harper's Ferry, and he showed that the 
trial of John Brown at Charlestown proved the 
allegation to be utterly fallacious. 

The sentences near the close of Mr. Lincoln's 
address will serve as the keynote upon which he 
subsequently based his candidacy for the Presi- 
dency in opposition to the extremely radical anti- 
slavery views of Horace Greeley and William H. 
Seward. 

"Wrong as we think slavery," said Lincoln, 
"we can afford to let it alone where it is, because 
that much is due to the necessity arising from its 
actual presence in the nation; but can we, while 
our votes will prevent, allow it to spread in the 
national Territories and to overrun us here in 
these free States? Let us have faith that right 
makes might, and in that faith let us dare to do 
our duty as we understand it." 

The reception of these closing words by former 

2 17 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Whigs and partially convinced Republicans who 
were in the audience can hardly be described as 
enthusiastic. Many of these men left the audi- 
torium that night, as I did, in a seriously thoughtful 
mood. 

Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln was congratulated by 
many upon the "boldness" of his views. And, 
indeed, they seemed radical at a time when nearly 
every prominent statesman of the country was 
"trimming" on the slavery question. The great 
Daniel Webster had ruined his political career 
some years previously by trying to be "all things 
to all men" politically. 

When I called at Mr. Lincoln's hotel the fol- 
lowing morning, I found Mr. Lincoln alone. The 
shouts of approbation of the previous night were 
still ringing in my ears, but the figure of the awk- 
ward Illinoisan suggested nothing in the way of 
public enthusiasm or personal distinction. He 
then and there appeared as a plain, unpretentious 
man. I ventured to congratulate him upon the 
success of his speech, and his face brightened. 
"I am not sure that I made a success," he said, 
diflBdently. 

During the remainder of the brief time I was 
with Mr. Lincoln in his hotel, together with two 
members of the Republican committee, there was 
only a general conversation about the Douglas- 
Lincoln debates, and the intense anti-slavery agi- 

18 



INTRODUCTION TO THE EAST 

tation prevailing in the Kansas and Nebraska 
Territories and in Illinois. 

A few days after that epoch-making speech a 
prominent Democratic acquaintance, who had 
often expressed to me in language of bitterness his 
hatred of all people who opposed the South, as- 
sured me that Mr. Lincoln's speech had made 
him a Free-Soiler, although he had not believed 
it possible that such a change in his views could 
ever occur. 

In subsequent speeches throughout New Eng- 
land Mr. Lincoln went to greater lengths in his 
denunciation of slavery. At Hartford, on the 
5th of March, he denounced slavery as the enemy 
of the free working-man; a day later, at New 
Haven, he characterized slavery as "the snake in 
the Union bed"; at Norwich, on the ninth of that 
month, he described Douglas's popular sovereign- 
ty as "the sugar-coated slavery pill." 

These later speeches greatly strengthened the 
anti-slavery agitation throughout the North, and 
went far to settle the opinions of the voters, who 
were wavering between Douglas's popular sov- 
ereignty and the ultra radicalism of Garrison and 
Phillips. 



Ill 

HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST NOMINATED 

THE Republican National Convention that 
convened in Chicago, May 16, 1860, proved 
a complete refutation of the frequently expressed 
belief that the new party had died with Fremont's 
defeat in 1856. Some of the ablest and most dis- 
tinguished men in the country appeared as del- 
egates and as candidates for nomination. During 
the four years following Fremont's defeat by 
James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, former minister 
to England, the Republican party had been 
strengthened by the affiliation of many Northern 
Democrats who were inclined to oppose the ex- 
tension of slavery. The struggles to exclude the 
curse of slavery from Kansas and Nebraska had 
agitated the entire country during these years, and 
had brought many new voters into the ranks of 
the Republican party. 

William H. Seward was admittedly the great 
Republican leader and the ablest champion of his 
party. His speech in the United States Senate 
on the "Irrepressible Conffict" had made him 

20 



FIRST NOMINATION 

famous all over the country, and he was con- 
stantly talked of by both friends and foes. At 
least two-thirds of the delegates at the Chicago 
convention favored his nomination, and even the 
majority of the delegates from Illinois, Lincoln's 
own State, while instructed to vote for "Honest 
Old Abe" as the favorite son, passively favored 
Seward. 

In the New York delegation was Tom Hyer, 
the noted champion prize-fighter of his genera- 
tion. He bore the banner of the New York City 
Republican Club, and was an ardent supporter of 
Seward. Being a man six feet two and a half 
inches in height, he presented an imposing figure. 

The defeat of Seward's ambition was generally 
ascribed to an unhealed break between Horace 
Greeley, Thurlow Weed, and himself. These 
three men, all eminent in their spheres, consti- 
tuted what was known then as the "Republican 
Triumvirate," or what would now be called the 
"Big Three." This breach occurred in Novem- 
ber, 1854, over five years previously. Greeley re- 
sented the injustice that he believed had been 
meted out to him, being sincerely of the opinion 
that Senator Seward had deceived him, and this 
unfriendly feeling had fermented into a fully 
developed hatred. 

His letter to Seward announcing "a dissolu- 
tion of the political firm of Seward, Weed, and 

21 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Greeley, by the withdrawal of the junior partner," 
is a part of political history. It is a long epistle, 
covering more than five pages in Greeley's Recol- 
lections of a Busy Life, in which is recounted the 
writer's career in New York, from his start as "a 
poor young printer" to his affiliations with the 
political powers of the Empire State. While it 
contains kindly words for Thurlow Weed, it pro- 
claims the severance of all relations with Seward. 
In conclusion, it acknowledges acts of kindness by 
his former partner in politics, and, reiterating that 
"such acts will be gratefully remembered, the 
writer takes an eternal farewell." 

In the stormy days preceding the Chicago con- 
vention the New York Tribune^s opposition to 
Seward's nomination had been continuous. But 
I have always had an idea, based upon a study of 
the actual occurrences in the convention where I 
was a looker-on, and from my intimacy with Mr. 
Greeley, that the factor which had the most to do 
with Seward's defeat was the fear of Henry S. 
Lane, Republican candidate for Governor of Indi- 
ana, and of Andrew G. Curtin, Republican can- 
didate for Governor of Pennsylvania, that Seward 
could not carry these two States. This weakness 
would not only insure defeat of the Presidential 
ticket, but would carry down with it the aspira- 
tions of these two Gubernatorial candidates. 

I talked with both of these able politicians on 

22 



FIRST NOMINATION 

the subject, and the reasons they gave for their 
opposition to Seward were that he had antago- 
nized the Protestant element of the country and 
the remnants of the old "Know Nothing party" 
by his advocacy, in a message to the New York 
Legislature, of a division of the school funds be- 
tween Catholic parochial schools and the common 
or public schools of the States in proportion to the 
number of Catholics and non-Catholics. How 
much ground there was for the anxiety of Lane 
and Curtin I have never been able to settle in my 
mind. Whether they were unduly alarmed or not, 
the dissemination of these views among the del- 
egates created a noticeable weakening on the part 
of Seward's friends. 

The battle in the convention was a contest of 
political giants. Thurlow Weed, to whom Lin- 
coln afterward became greatly attached, was Sew- 
ard's devoted and loyal friend and champion. He 
gallantly led the fight for him, ably supported by 
Edwin D. Morgan, the war Governor of New 
York, and chairman, at that time, of the National 
Committee, and also by Henry J. Raymond, the 
distinguished founder of the New York Times, and 
in later years Lieutenant-Governor of the State of 
New York. 

Before the convention was called to order at least 
eight candidates were in the field; to enumerate 
them: 

23 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

William H. Seward, of New York. 

Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. 

Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania. 

Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio. 

Edward Bates, of Missouri. 

William L. Dayton, of New Jersey. 

Justice John McLean, of the Supreme Court. 

Jacob Collamer, of Vermont. 

George Ashman, of Massachusetts, was chosen 
permanent chairman of the convention, and after 
the platform was read Joshua Giddings moved 
that it should be amended by inserting a part of 
the Declaration of Independence. This was vio- 
lently opposed by another delegate in a rather sar- 
castic speech, whereupon George William Curtis, 
one of the great orators of America, and at the 
time editor of Harper's Weekly, got the floor and 
in his mellifluous voice said: 

"Gentlemen, have you dared to come to this 
convention to undo what your fathers did in 
Independence Hall.^^" 

Curtis's speech carried the amendment. 

To impress all wavering delegates, an imposing 
political parade through the streets was organ- 
ized by Seward's friends. It was great in num- 
bers and enthusiasm. Hundreds of marchers, 
among whom Tom Hyer, in his glossy silk hat, 
was a prominent figure, were drafted into the 

parade by the political wire-pullers, but it had no 

24 



FIRST NOMINATION 

effect in determining the result on the floor of the 
convention. 

Indeed, from my long political experience I 
have come to the conclusion that these public 
parades, while imposing for the moment, have no 
permanent influence upon the voters. The mob 
of spectators along the streets are there largely as 
a matter of curiosity, and are not to be swerved 
from their convictions by any mere spectacle. 

While this outside parade was being carried on, 
Lincoln's friends developed tremendous energy 
and skill in marshaling the delegates. Among the 
leaders of the "rail -splitter's" cause were Joseph 
Medill, the celebrated editor of the Chicago Trib- 
une, David Davis, the intimate friend of Lincoln, 
afterward appointed by him justice of the United 
States Supreme Court; Norman B. Judd; and 
Leonard Swett, remarkable for his close resem- 
blance to Lincoln. 

Greeley was an intense champion of Edward 
Bates, who had been a representative from Mis- 
souri during the administration of John Quincy 
Adams. 

Greeley's championship of Bates was remark- 
able for several reasons. Bates was born in Vir- 
ginia, he had been a lifelong slaveholder, and in 
politics he was what was known as a "Silver-gray 
Whig." Consequently he was conservative on the 
slavery question, clinging to the doctrine of the 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

revolutionary sages that "slavery was an evil to 
be restricted, not a good to be diffused." Greeley 
insisted that the position that Bates thus held 
made him essentially a Republican. While he be- 
lieved that Bates would poll votes even in the 
slave States, he was confident that he would rally 
about him all that was left of the old WTiig party. 

Greeley, regarding trouble with the Southern 
States as probably inevitable, yet believed that 
the nomination of Bates would check and possibly 
avert an open schism. He did not at the time 
avow these reasons for supporting Bates, but after- 
ward frankly admitted them. While these views 
may have influenced his opposition to Seward's 
nomination, there is no doubt in my mind but 
that the real reason of his fight against Seward 
were the grounds hereinbefore stated. 

The Free Soil element at Chicago was both 
prominent and aggressive. A characteristic anec- 
dote is told of Greeley during a caucus at which a 
Free Soil member shouted, "Let us have a can- 
didate, this time, that represents our advanced 
convictions against slavery." 

"My friend," inquired Greeley, in his falsetto 
voice, as he rose to his feet, "suppose each Repub- 
lican voter in your State were to receive a letter 
to-morrow advising him that he (the said voter) 
had just lost a brother living in the South, who 

had left to him a plantation stocked with slaves. 

26 



FIRST NOMINATION 

How many of the two hundred and fifty thousand 
Repubhcans would, in response, set free those 
slaves?" 

"I fear I could not stand that test myself," was 
the rejoinder. 

"Then it is not yet time to nominate an aboli- 
tionist," retorted Greeley, sitting down. 

This is a good story, but if the incident took 
place at all it must have occurred elsewhere than 
in the caucus of the New York delegation, for the 
reason that Greeley, not being a delegate from the 
State of New York, could not attend the caucus 
of that delegation. He was appointed a delegate 
from Oregon, by the special request of the Re- 
publicans of that State, and as such sat in the 
convention. 

Seward had all of the delegates from New York, 
Michigan, Massachusetts, and he counted many 
followers in other States. 

Lincoln had a strong following from his own 
State, and on the first ballot mustered one hun- 
dred and two votes out of a total of four hundred 
and sixty-six. Seward received one hundred and 
seventy-two and a half on the second ballot; then 
Cameron turned his votes over to Lincoln, and 
thirteen of the Bates delegates followed suit. On 
the third ballot Lincoln's vote had increased to 
two hundred and thirty-one and a half, while 
Seward's was only one hundred and eighty. When 

27 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

the break started I turned to my neighbor in the 
gallery and remarked, "Seward is defeated; 
Lincoln will be nominated." 

"No," he objected; "this is only one delegation, 
and Seward's friends are too devotedly attached 
to his fortunes. They will never go over to his 
opponent." 

"And what will Greeley do?" I asked. 

"Greeley will be left with only his hatred," he 
rejoined. 

And yet, even as we were speaking, the tide 
had turned. Delegate after delegate came over 
to Lincoln, and the final ballot gave him three 
hundred and fifty-four votes and the nomination. 
When the result was announced there was an 
outbreak from the galleries which had been packed 
with Lincoln sympathizers, but the New York 
delegates sat silent and sullen in their seats. It 
seemed a long time, although it was really only a 
few minutes, before William M. Evarts, the dis- 
tinguished member of the New York bar, who 
later became Secretary of State under President 
Hayes, and Senator from the State of New York, 
rose and moved, presumably with Seward's acqui- 
escence, that Lincoln's nomination be made 
unanimous. Then the applause broke out again 
and this time it was much more general and 
spontaneous. 

Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for 

28 



FIRST NOMINATION 

Vice-President practically without opposition. The 
singular coincidence that the last syllable of 
Lincoln's first name, "Abraham," and the first 
syllable of his last name, "Lincoln," form the 
name "Hamlin," attracted wide attention at that 

time. 

A great many anti-slavery advocates in the 
North differed with Lincoln as regards his views 
on the grave question of the immediate extinction 
of slavery in the Southern States. They did not 
understand him. 

They did not comprehend that he was at heart 
thoroughly imbued with the unrighteousness of 
property in human beings, but that he felt it was 
good policy to go gradually, step by step, hoping 
to unite the entire North and so bring about the 
ultimate abolishment of slavery; whereas, if the 
policy for the immediate extinction of slavery 
should be adopted it must inevitably have dis- 
rupted the Republican party. 

I was present at that convention, not as a del- 
egate, but as a "looker-on" and a student of 
American politics. I need not say that I learned 
much about the finesse and spirit of compromise 
that enters into all national conventions. 

From a brief conversation which I had with Mr. 
Greeley, I understood that while he disclaimed 
having effected Seward's defeat, he was only 
moderately gratified at Lincoln's nomination. 

29 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

In his well-known volume of Recollections he in- 
timates that he exerted much less influence in 
bringing about Seward's defeat than I gathered 
from the conversation I had with him on the 
morning following Lincoln's nomination. 

The demand of the people of the North, where 
the Republican strength lay exclusively, was for 
a candidate who would appeal to both Free- 
Soilers and abolitionists. Between these factions 
there was an almost impassable gulf. 

Now as the years have rolled on Lincoln has 
grown steadily in the love and admiration of the 
American people, and the unjust criticism which 
was made by the abolitionists at the time of his 
nomination, namely, that he did not favor the 
abolition of slavery in the States because he was 
born in the South, is regarded with disdain. The 
abolitionists in their intemperate criticism used 
language, in discussing Lincoln, hardly less acri- 
monious than that employed by the "fire-eaters" 
of the South; but they had no recourse except to 
vote for him. Thus were added thousands of un- 
willing votes to swell the Lincoln aggregate in the 
November election. 

The Democratic convention had convened at an 
earlier date in Charleston, South Carolina, the city 
of my birth. After quarreling over a platform for a 
week, the convention was split by the withdrawal 
of the majority of the delegates of the slave 

30 



FIRST NOMINATION 

States, following the adoption of the plank favor- 
ing the Douglas "popular sovereignty" doctrine. 

After fifty-seven ballots for President, in which 
Douglas had the majority in every instance, but 
not the two-thirds required for nomination in 
Democratic conventions, the convention adjourned 
on May 3, 1860, to reassemble at Baltimore, June 
18. There, the places of the seceders having been 
filled, Douglas received one hundred and seventy- 
three and a half votes on the first ballot and one 
hundred and eighty-one and a half on the second, 
still lacking the vote of two-thirds of the three 
hundred and three delegates in convention. On 
motion of Sanford E. Church, of New York, who, 
in later years, became chief -justice of, the Court of 
Appeals of that State, he was declared the nominee. 
Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, was named as 
candidate for Vice-President. 

The remnant of the Charleston convention 

gathered itself together in a separate convention, 

also held in Baltimore, on the eleventh day of 

June. It adjourned on the 25th of that 

month, when John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, 

— at that time Vice-President under Buchanan — 

was unanimously named for President, with Gen. 

Joseph II. Lane, of Oregon, as his running mate. 

In the Charleston convention Benjamin F. 

Butler, of Massachusetts, who during the Civil 

War became identified with the North and was 

31 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

made a major-general in the Union Army, cast a 
solitary vote for Jefferson Davis as the Democratic 
candidate for President. 

The three-cornered contest that followed be- 
tween Lincoln, Douglas, and Breckenridge is par- 
alleled in American political history by the famous 
campaign of 1824 when Jackson, Adams, Clay, 
and Crawford, all of the same party, were running 
for the Presidency. As none of the latter received 
a majority of the electoral vote, the election, under 
the provisions of the Constitution, was thrown 
into the House of Representatives, where John 
Quincy Adams received the nomination. 

When the committee went to Springfield to 
notify Mr. Lincoln of his nomination. Judge Kelly, 
of Pennsylvania, known, because of his service of 
over thirty years in Congress, as the father of the 
House of Representatives, was one of the com- 
mittee. The judge was unusually large in stature, 
and his great height attracted Mr. Lincoln, who, 
upon shaking hands with him, asked, "What is 
your height. Judge .f^" 

"About six feet three," said Judge Kelly. 
"What is yours, Mr. Lincoln." 

"Six feet four," replied Lincoln, with a smile, 
pulling himself up to his full stature. 

"Pennsylvania," said Judge Kelly, "bows to 
Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has 
been aching for a President that I could *look 

32 



I FIRST NOMINATION 

up to/ and I have found him in the land where we 
thought there was none but 'Little Giants.' " 

Lincoln replied, " There is one man in this coun- 
try who, though little in stature, is a giant in 
mind, and he has given me much hard work to do." 

Mr. Lincoln's reply to the committee that vis- 
ited Springfield on May 19, to notify him of his 
nomination, and his formal letter of acceptance, 
dated May 23, avoided all reference to what Mr. 
Seward had described as "the impending crisis." 
In his letter Mr. Lincoln pledged "due regard to 
the rights of all States and Territories and people 
of the nation, to the inviolability of the Constitu- 
tion, and the perpetual union, harmony, and pros- 
perity of all." This assurance satisfied neither 
slaveholders of the South nor anti-slave men of 
the North. This letter often rose to haunt Lin- 
coln in the latter part of the war, after he had 
issued the Emancipation Proclamation which gave 
freedom to all the slaves. 

Mr. Lincoln was in the office of the Springfield 
Journal when he received the first notification of 
his nomination. After allowing the assembled 
people to congratulate him, he said, "There is a 
little woman down at our house that would like 
to hear the news," and he started at once for home. 



IV 

HOW LINCOLN WAS FIRST ELECTED 

NOT long after the nomination I went to 
Chicago and thence to Springfield. When 
I called at the modest Lincoln home, in order to 
offer my congratulations, I found him eager to 
obtain every ray of light upon the prospects of the 
coming campaign. 

"What are the chances of my election?" he 
asked, as he took my hand. 

"You are going to get the entire North," I 
replied, "on account of the Democratic division 
between Breckenridge and Douglas." 

"That is my own way of calculating," he as- 
sented, "but I am glad to get the views of every- 
body of experience in political matters." 

"Mr. Dittenhoefer is absolutely correct in his 
figuring," put in a bystander, and the glimmer of 
a smile of satisfaction passed over Mr. Lincoln's 
rugged countenance. I stepped back and stood 
looking and wondering. Typically Western he 
seemed to be in face, figure, and dress. How would 

34 



FIRST ELECTION 

he bear himself if called upon to direct the des- 
tinies of the Republic? Let me say frankly that, 
at this early day, no suspicion of his real great- 
ness had ever entered my mind. I knew he was 
an able man, and I was content to hope that he 
might be strong enough to cope with the coming 
crisis in national affairs. 

The Republican campaign, which began in ear- 
nest by the middle of June and lasted until the 
night before election day in November, differed in 
many respects from any other in my recollection. 

I believe that there was more sincerity of soul 
put into the efforts to win by fair means than has 
appeared in more recent national contests. 

A few days before the election of 1860 I made a 
speech at Cooper Institute, which began as follows: 

"With banners waving and with bugle horns. 
We are coming. Father Abraham, five hundred thousand 

strong. 
One blast upon the bugle horn is worth a thousand men." 

This was repeated by numerous speakers on the 
stump throughout the country. 

Memories of these parades, stump speeches, and 
bonfires linger with me vividly. The marching 
clubs were called "Wide Awakes," and upon the 
oil-cloth cloaks, cut amply long in order to protect 
their wearers from the weather, the words "Wide 
Awake," in tall, white letters, were painted. Each 

35 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

man carried a swinging torch which maintained 
an upright position no matter how it was held. 
The campaign developed numerous parades of 
these "Wide Awakes" in cities and towns through- 
out the country. 

The Republican National Committee was not 
in possession of large funds, and each organization 
financed itself. It is doubtful if the National Com- 
mittee had more than $100,000 to spend, and most 
of this went for printing and postage. There was 
no "yellow-dog fund" in those days. Had it been 
necessary for Mr. Lincoln or his managers to raise 
a half-million dollars, or go down to defeat, 
Lincoln would have lost out. 

Our "infant industries" had not yet been de- 
veloped and "brought to a head by the poultice 
of protection." The late Senator Hanna would 
have regarded the prospects of a successful cam- 
paign without contribution from the protected 
interests as exceedingly doubtful. 

I threw all my energy into this campaign, and, 
though young, I was frequently making several 
speeches during a day and evening. I marched 
with the "Wide Awakes," and was sent to differ- 
ent parts of the State, where, with other speakers, 
I addressed large audiences. The temper of my 
hearers was not always encouraging. 

I have always doubted whether Seward's par- 
tisan adherents in central New York gave really 

36 



FIRST ELECTION 

loyal support to Lincoln, since it continued to 
rankle in their breasts that the sentiment of two- 
thirds of the convention, originally in favor of 
Seward, had been turned to Lincoln through the 
machinations of Horace Greeley, Reuben E. Fen- 
ton— afterward Governor of the State of New 
York— and other prominent anti-Seward men. 

No attempt was made by the Republicans to 
campaign in the Southern States, where the breach 
existing between the Douglas and Breckenridge 
adherents was remorselessly unrelenting. The 
drift in those States was naturally unanimously in 
favor of Breckenridge, and it was early recognized 
that Douglas, though a Democrat, would not carry 
a single Southern State. 

In the North the contest lay between Lincoln 
and Douglas. Breckenridge and Bell counted 
comparatively few and scattered followers, and 
their names awakened no enthusiasm. 

Stephen A. Douglas was one of the best types of 
the American aggressive politician this country 
ever produced. I heard Douglas speak on several 
occasions. His figure was short and chunky, 
hardly measuring up to his popular title of the 
"Little Giant." He was very eloquent, but his 
campaign theme, "Popular Sovereignty," was 
never a drawing-card in the North, and the prac- 
tical application of this doctrine was really re- 
stricted to the Territories, including "Bleeding 

37 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Kansas." The many speeches that Douglas made 
throughout the North only had the effect of 
consolidating the opponents of "Squatter Sov- 
ereignty." 

The adoption by Southern States of the prin- 
ciple of "State rights," which in effect was only 
another name for the right of secession, was the 
reason advanced to justify the rebellion which 
broke out with such fury in later years; but the 
demand for the right to introduce slavery into 
new territory was, in my opinion, the impelling 
reason that finally made the Civil War inevitable. 

In the free States the division of the popular 
vote was chiefly between Lincoln and Douglas, 
while the slave States were largely for Brecken- 
ridge, with a minority for Bell, the "Silver-gray 
Whig" candidate. 

The totals in the two sections are interesting as 

matters of record: 

Brecken- 
LiNcoLN Douglas ridge Bell 

Free States 1,831,180 1,128,049 279,211 130,151 

Slave States 26,430 163,574 570,871 515,973 

Total 1,857,610 1,291,623 850,082 646,124 

Mr. Lincoln had 180 electoral votes to 123 for 
all the other candidates. Every free State, with 
the exception of New Jersey, went for him, and 
even New Jersey gave him four votes, the three 

38 



FIRST ELECTION 

remaining going to the "Little Giant." Breck- 
enridge, with a much smaller popular vote than 
Douglas, had 72 electoral votes, while Douglas, 
with a larger popular vote, had only 12 in all. 

As Mr. Greeley accurately summed it up: "A 
united North succeeded over a divided South; 
while in 1856 a united South triumphed over a 
divided North." 

Let us remember that a majority of the mem- 
bers of the Supreme Court had shown strong 
Southern proclivities; the Senate was also largely 
anti-Republican, and the House of Representatives 
had a very mixed political complexion, owing to 
the fact that many of its members had been 
chosen in the October election preceding the 
Presidential election. 

Such was the national situation after the popular 
verdict had been declared in favor of Lincoln and 
Hamlin. The South could not reconcile itself to 
the result. Trouble was in the air, but the North 
did not yet realize the inevitability of civil war. 

It was a long, anxious winter for the President- 
elect, and the strain upon him then was even 
more noticeable than after he assumed the burden 
of his great office. 

He delivered his pathetic farewell address to 
his neighbors and friends in Springfield on Feb- 
ruary 11, 1861, and the following extract is 
entitled to a place in this record: 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

My friends: No one, not in my situation, can appreciate 
my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the 
kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young 
to an old man. Here my children have been born, and here 
one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether I 
ever may return, with a task before me greater than that 
which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of 
that Divine Being who ever attended him I cannot succeed. 
With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who 
can go with me, and yet remain with you and be everywhere 
for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. 
To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you 
will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. 

Many of Mr. Lincoln's neighbors were in tears. 
I was not at Springfield on that day, but I heard 
directly from men who were present that the pain 
of separation was keenly felt by all classes of 
society. 

Mr. Lincoln left Springfield not to retm-n. 



THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL 

THE trip from Springfield to Washington was 
one of continuous enthusiasm, the President- 
elect receiving an ovation at every city en route. 
The first halt was made at Indianapolis, where he 
addressed a meeting, at which the famous War- 
Governor Morton presided. On this occasion he 
declared that " the preservation of the Union rests 
entirely with the people." 

On the same day he spoke before a joint meet- 
ing of the Indiana Legislature, choosing for his 
theme: "The Union, is it a marriage bond or a 
free-love arrangement.'^" 

When about to cross the Ohio River into Vir- 
ginia, a slave State, he gave it as his opinion that 
devotion to the Constitution was equally great on 
both sides of the stream, and he went on to 
emphasize the right of the majority to rule. 

Arriving at Cleveland, he made an address in 

which he referred to the apprehended trouble as 

"altogether artificial, due only to differences in 

41 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

political opinion." "Nothing," he declared, "is 
going to hurt the South; they are citizens of this 
common country and we have no power to change 
their conditions. What, then, is the matter with 
them.f^ Why all these complaints? Doesn't this 
show how artificial is the crisis.^ It has no foun- 
dation in fact. It can't be argued up and it can't 
be argued down. Let it alone, and it will go 
down of itself." 

This would seem to show that Mr. Lincoln 
really believed that the trouble in the South 
would blow over. How sadly he was mistaken! 
It was not until he arrived in the East and learned 
from trustworthy sources of the danger confront- 
ing him between New York and Washington that 
he accepted the situation as it actually existed. 

Buffalo was the next stopping-place, and the 
mayor and a large assemblage welcomed the 
President-elect. The stability of the Union was 
the speaker's theme, but he reiterated that he 
relied more upon divine assistance than help from 
human hands and hearts. 

At Albany Governor Morgan presided over a 
public meeting, at which Lincoln again declared 
that he would be "President not of a party, but 
of a nation." Later in the day he delivered an- 
other address, in which he said that "the might- 
iest of tasks confronted the humblest of Presi- 
dents," 

42 



THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL 

He remained two days in New York City, 
where he delivered two addresses. To a large 
audience, over which the unsympathetic Dem- 
ocratic mayor, Fernando Wood, presided, Mr. 
Lincoln expressed his doubts as to the situation 
in quaint language. He likened the Union to a 
ship and its traditions to the cargo, saying that 
he was willing and anxious to save both the ship 
and cargo, but if not both, the cargo would have 
to go overboard for the safety of the ship. 

I heard that address and it gave me the im- 
pression that Mr. Lincoln had become bolder in 
the expression of his feeling against the contin- 
uance of slavery in the South. To-day it recalls 
itself to me as being the first gleam of emanci- 
pation. 

The speaker was more grave and serious than 
usual; his voice was harsh and his manner in- 
dicated either fatigue or anxiety regarding the 
future. I detected a decided change in Mr, 
Lincoln since seeing him at Springfield; he was 
a man carrying a burden that grew heavier day 
by day. 

The journey toward Washington was resumed 
on February 21, a halt being made at Trenton for 
the President-elect to address, separately, the 
Senate and the Assembly of New Jersey. 

Later in the afternoon the train reached Phila- 
delphia, where a reception presided over by the 

43 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

mayor was tendered to him. In consequence of 
reports of danger he was practically smuggled 
away from Philadelphia, being hurried in a closed 
carriage to the old Prince Street station, on South 
Broad Street, where an engine and one car was 
waiting. This was run through to Baltimore and 
thence over the Baltimore and Ohio branch to 
Washington. 

A large number of citizens in Baltimore, not 
confined by any means to the mob, were bitterly 
hostile to "the Yankee President," as they de- 
risively described the man from Illinois. That 
the precautions taken were justified was proven 
within two months by the murderous assault upon 
the Sixth Massachusetts regiment during its march 
through Baltimore. 

A little over four years later, when Lincoln's 
funeral cortege passed through Baltimore, a com- 
plete change of feeling had taken place. In the 
selfsame city which had been considered unsafe 
for President Lincoln to pass through, the first 
great demonstration of grief occurred. 

The President-elect arrived in Washington on 
February 27, and although no outward evidence 
of the coming storm was observable, there was an 
intense feeling of anxiety among all classes at the 
national capital; it must be remembered that 
most of the office-holders were Southerners and 
that the city was filled with residents sympathetic 

44 



THE JOURNEY TO THE CAPITAL 

with the South. In a reply to a serenade at his 
hotel on the evening of February 28, Mr. Lincoln 
lamented the misunderstanding that existed be- 
tween the people of the North and the South, and 
reiterated his determination to enforce equal 
rights under the Constitution to all citizens. He 
pledged an impartial administration of the law. 
I was present at the delivery of Lincoln's in- 
augural address, a wonderful piece of English 
composition which will continue to live when the 
monuments of bronze and marble erected to his 
memory have crumbled to dust. In it occur these 
unforgetable words: 

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness 
in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to 
finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; 
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his 
widow and orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all 
nations. 

The President impressed me as being very seri- 
ous in manner. His voice sounded shrill, but he 
was talking at high pitch in order that he might 
be heard by as many as possible of the immense 
crowd. The assemblage was orderly, respectful, 
and attentive. Little by little his auditors warmed 
toward him, until finally the applause became over- 
whelming, spontaneous, and enthusiastic. Then, 

45 






•...i.-«f».* —■ 'iv»«jp« 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

for the first time, it dawned upon me that 
Lincoln was not only the strong man needed at 
this crisis of our national affairs, but one of the 
few great men of all time; and I may say safely 
that this conviction was shared by all within 
hearing of his voice. 

Thirty-nine days later the cannon were boom- 
ing at Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter. 



VI 

STORIES AND INCIDENTS 

A PPARENTLY the world is never weary of 
XjL asking what was the true Abraham Lincoln, 
and every side-light upon his character is signif- 
icant. 

A man whom I knew well discovered the Presi- 
dent at his oflSce counting greenbacks and in- 
closing them in an envelope. He asked Mr. 
Lincoln how he could spare the time for such a 
task in the midst of the important duties that 
were pressing upon him. 

Lincoln replied: "The President of the United 
States has a multiplicity of duties not specified in 
the Constitution or the laws. This is one of them. 
It is money which belongs to a negro porter from 
the Treasury Department. He is now in the 
hospital, too sick to sign his name, and according 
to his wish I am putting a part of it aside in an 
envelope, properly labeled, to save it for him." 

An eye-witness relates that one day while 
walking along a shaded path from the Executive 
Mansion to the War Office, he saw the tall form of 

47 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

the President seated on the grass. He afterward 
learned that a wounded soldier, while on his way 
to the White House seeking back pay and a 
pension, had met the President and had asked 
his assistance. Whereupon Mr. Lincoln sat down, 
looked over the soldier's papers, and advised him 
what to do; he ended by giving him a note direct- 
ing him to the proper place to secure attention. 

Driving up to a hospital one day he saw one of the 
patients walking directly in the path of his team. 
The horses were checked none too soon; then 
Mr. Lincoln saw that he was nothing but a boy 
and had been wounded in both eyes. He got out 
of the carriage and questioned the poor fellow, 
asking him his name, his service, and his residence. 
*'I am Abraham Lincoln," he said, upon leaving; 
and the sightless face lighted at the President's 
words of sympathy. The following day the chief 
of the hospital delivered to the boy a commission 
in the Army of the United States as first lieuten- 
ant. The papers bore the President's signature 
and were accompanied by an order retiring him 
on three-quarters pay for the years of helplessness 
that lay before him. 

"Some of my generals complain that I impair 
discipline in the Army by my pardons and 
respites," Lincoln once said. "But it rests me, 
after a hard day's work, if I can find some excuse 
for saving a man's life, and I go to bed happy as 

48 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS 

I think how joyous the signing of my name will 
make him and his family and his friends." 

I once heard Mr. Lincoln telling a number of 
Congressmen in the anteroom of the White House 
that in the distribution of patronage care should 
be taken of the disabled soldiers and the widows 
and orphans of deceased soldiers, and these views 
were subsequently conveyed to the Senate in a 
message which contained the following language: 

Yesterday a little endorsement of mine went to you in 
two cases of postmasterships sought for widows whose hus- 
bands have fallen in the battles of the war. These cases 
occurring on the same day brought me to reflect more atten- 
tively than I had before as to what is fairly due in the dis- 
pensing of patronage to the men who, by fighting our battles, 
bear the chief burden of saving our country. My conclu- 
sion is that, other claims and qualifications being equal, they 
have the better right; and this is especially applicable to 
the disabled soldier and the deceased soldier's family. 

It may not be out of place to consider here 
what would be Mr. Lincoln's attitude toward the 
irrepressible conflict that has been raging with 
such fierceness all over the world, between capital 
and labor, and which is ever increasing in inten- 
sity. I quote the following extracts from Lincoln's 
message to Congress as showing his views on that 
question : 

It is not needed, not fitting here, that a general argument 
should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there 
4 49 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

is one point not so hackneyed to which I ask a brief attention 
— it is an effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if 
not above, labor in the structure of the Government. Capital 
is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor 
had not existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves 
much higher consideration. 

It will thus be seen that the President's sym- 
pathies were with struggling labor, and against 
the powerful capitalists, and that he would ex- 
ercise his constitutional powers to promote the 
welfare of the laboring class. That attitude is in 
keeping with the broad humanitarian principles 
that always influenced Mr. Lincoln's actions. 

Truly, Lincoln's great, tender heart was always 
open to the sufferings of humanity; certainly his 
sympathy was never branded by the limitations 
of creed or dogma. He never became a member 
of any church, but no one could doubt that he 
was a man of deep religious feeling. I remember 
on one occasion hearing him say, "Religion is a 
matter of faith; all good men will be saved." 
Judging by our standard of to-day, this utterance 
would class him with the Unitarians. 

Upon one occasion, after he had become our 
President, he visited the Five Points Mission in 
New York, at that time a notorious slum, and 
addressed a number of children; while there he 
gave no intimation that he was President of the 
United States. When he was leaving the teacher 

50 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS 

thanked him, and asked who he was. He simply 
answered, "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois." 

I have spoken of seeing Lincoln smile, but I 
never remember hearing him laugh heartily, even 
when he was convulsing every one about him 
with one of his inimitably told stories. And yet 
he apparently enjoyed exciting the mirth of others, 
and to that extent, at least, he seemed to enter 
into the spirit of the comedy. Many of the great 
humorists of the world have been men of melan- 
choly mood, and both tears and laughter are based 
on the same precious essence. 

I was often in Washington in those days, and I 
recollect frequently seeing the great President 
walking on Pennsylvania Avenue, with "Little 
Tad" clasping his hand. The fact that he took 
Tad with him on his important mission to Rich- 
mond, where he attended the conference with 
some of the leaders of the Confederacy, shows the 
companionship and intense affection between the 
President and the son of his old age. 

Once while Mrs. Lincoln was at Manchester, 
Vermont, she received a message from the Presi- 
dent, saying, "All is well, including Tad's pony 
and the goats." A little later he asked her to tell 
"dear Tad that poor nanny-goat is lost." 

I often saw the President sitting in the White 
House in carpet slippers, and wearing an old 
bombazine coat out at the elbows. Indeed, Mr. 

51 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Lincoln was not created to adorn fashionable 
society, and did not care for it. Clothing never 
troubled him, while Mrs. Lincoln set much store 
upon appearances and was concerned over her 
husband's indifference to them. 

The severe trials which confronted him, greater 
than any other President encountered, and the 
heavy burden that rested on him, did not blunt 
his finer feelings. 

In a conversation with Mr. Lincoln, in which 
his visit to Richmond came up, I casually inquired 
what he thought should be done with Jefferson 
Davis at the end of the war, which appeared then 
to be approaching. After a moment's deliberation 
his sad face brightened as he answered that, if 
he had his way, he would let him die in peace on 
his Southern plantation. I remember well that 
at that time my interpretation of his words was 
that he would not permit any punishment to be 
inflicted on Jefferson Davis, unless it were abso- 
lutely demanded by the American people. 

During the early part of President Johnson's 
administration, after the collapse of the rebel- 
lion, Davis was captured and brought on habeas 
corpus proceedings before a Virginia court and 
released on bail. Horace Greeley, Gerritt Smith, 
and other Northern anti-slavery men became 
sureties on the bail bond, but no proceedings were 

ever taken to bring Davis to trial. He was al- 

5« 



STORIES AND INCIDENTS 

lowed to die in peace on his Southern planta- 
tion. 

Can history show any thought more magnani- 
mous in the life of a ruler or statesman than this? 
Lincoln urged Meade, after the battle of Gettys- 
burg to pursue Lee in retreat and with one bold 
stroke end the war. The order was peremptory, 
but a friendly note was attached, as follows: 

The order I enclose is not of record. If you succeed, you 
need not publish the order. If you fail, publish it. Then, 
if you succeed, you will have all the credit of the movement. 
If not, I'll take care of the responsibility. 

A striking example of the President's unselfish 
refusal to use his official position for the advance- 
ment of any member of his family, is found in his 
letter to General Grant, asking for a commission 
for his son, Robert. 

Please read and answer this letter as though I was not 
President, but only a friend. My son, now in liis twenty- 
second year, having graduated at Harvard, wishes to see 
something of the war before it ends. I do not wish to put 
him in the ranks, nor yet give him a commission to which 
those who have already served long are better entitled and 
better qualified to hold. 

Could he, without embarrassment to you or detriment to 
the service, go into your military family with some nominal 
rank; I, and not the public, furnishing his necessary means? 
If not, say so without the least hesitation, because I am as 
anxious and as deeply interested that you shall not be en- 
cumbered as you can be yourself. 

53 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Mr. Lincoln was famous for disposing of office- 
seekers without leaving a sting behind. H. C. 
Whitney told this story to a friend of mine: 

"I had business in Washington in 1861 per- 
taining to the Indian service, and I remarked to 
Mr. Lincoln that, 'Everything is drifting into the 
war, and I guess you will have to put me in the 
Army.' Lincoln smiled and said: *I'm making 
generals now. In a few days I'll be making 
quartermasters, then I'll see to you.'" 

Lincoln, referring to the criticisms made upon 
the administration, particularly in regard to 
matters entirely outside of its jurisdiction, said 
that he was reminded of a certain Long Island 
fisherman who was accustomed to go out eeling 
every morning. In the old days, he asserted, he 
never caught less than a pailful of eels, but since 
this administration came into power he had to be 
content with half a pailful. Therefore he was 
going to vote for the Democratic party; he 
wanted a change. 



VII 

FOUR YEARS OF STRESS AND STRAIN 

BUCHANAN belonged to the school of Amer- 
ican pro-slavery Presidents. During the last 
year of his administration he was as completely 
dominated by the Southern members of his 
Cabinet as were the Merovingian kings by their 
mayors of the palace. By blackest treachery, 
John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, and Isaac 
Toucey, Secretary of the Navy, gorged the 
armories and navy -yards located in the slave 
States with arms, ordnance, and all manner of 
munitions of war, thus anticipating months ahead 
what the Southern politicians regarded as the 
"inevitable conflict." The Federal Government, 
with the spineless Buchanan at its head, was ut- 
terly unprepared for the crisis. 

Such was the situation when President Lincoln 
took the oath of office; such the already divided 
nation when the irresolute, truckling Buchanan 
handed over the destinies of the Republic to his 
successor. 

55 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

No heavier burden ever was imposed upon a 
ruler of any people. 

Mr. Lincoln was only partially fortunate in 
choosing his Cabinet. Seward was inevitable. 
Chase was a lucky guess, because he was without 
a record as a financier. Cameron was a mistake, 
and the error was not rectified as promptly as it 
should have been. The other members, with the 
possible exception of Gideon Welles, who received 
the Navy portfolio, were negligible. 

The administration found itself without an 
army, many of its ablest officers having left the 
service to take up arms against the Federal Gov- 
ernment. The rank and file of the army was 
fairly loyal, but the troops had been so scattered 
by Buchanan's secretary of war that they could 
not be mobilized promptly when the hour of 
danger came. Despite the plottings of Secretary 
Toucey, however, the vessels of the Navy were so 
dispersed that the Confederacy was unable to 
seize many of them. This was most fortunate, 
since it made possible the prompt establishment 
of a Federal blockade over important Atlantic and 
Gulf ports. 

Legal business took me to Washington about 

four months after Lincoln's first inauguration and 

I called at the White House, in company with Mr. 

Fenton. Although a score of men were present 

in the different parts of the large room overlooking 

56 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

the South lot, Mr. Lincoln was walking the floor 
in a preoccupied manner, evidently deeply dis- 
tressed. 

The Federal troops had just been defeated at 
Big Bethel by a much smaller force under Ma- 
gruder, a crushing blow for the Union arms. 

I suggested to Mr. Fenton that we should retire, 
as the visit seemed inopportune, but the Presi- 
dent's grave face showed signs of recognition when 
he saw Mr. Fenton. He stopped, and as we 
approached him, he said: 

"The storm is upon us; it will be much worse 
before it is better. I suppose there was a divine 
purpose in thrusting this terrible responsibility 
upon me, and I can only hope for more than 
human guidance. I am only a mortal in the 
hands of destiny. I am ready for the trial and 
shall do my best, because I know I am acting for 
the right." 

He did not mention the defeat that had occurred 
only two days before, but it was evident that he 
comprehended fully the desperate situation that 
confronted the Federal Government. 

Big Bethel was within ten miles of Fortress 
Monroe, and I subsequently learned from a 
member of the Cabinet that the utmost anxiety 
existed regarding the safety of that post. If 
treachery existed among its oflScers, the secret 
has been kept until this day, but one can under- 

57 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

stand the agonizing suspense of that hour. Had 
the great fortress at Old Point Comfort fallen into 
the hands of the Confederacy, the early part of 
the war would necessarily have been fought upon 
entirely different lines. 

Mr. Lincoln possessed no knowledge of the art 
of war, but he had sufficient intuitive foresight to 
comprehend what the loss of control of the en- 
trance to Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the 
James River would mean. Although he said so 
little, this meeting and the few words he used 
were most impressive, and are stamped deep upon 
my memory. 

As I have just remarked, military and naval 
technicalities did not matter much to Lincoln, 
and he was accustomed to brush them aside in his 
familiar, humorous way. When Mr. Bushnell 
brought to Washington the plans for the Monitor, 
the recent invention of Mr. Ericsson, which became 
famous in the sea-fight with the rebel Merrimac, 
most of the naval officers expressed doubts as to 
the efficiency of the Monitor in a naval fight. Mr. 
Lincoln's opinion was asked. He said he knew 
little about ships, but he "did understand a flat- 
boat, and this invention was flat enough." 

Later, at a meeting of the Army board, when 
asked by Admiral Smith what he thought of the 
Monitor, he remarked, with his most quizzical 
look, "Well, I feel a good deal about it as a fat 

§^ 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

girl did when she put her foot in her stocking; 
she thought there was something in it." 

All present laughed at this drollery, but it was 
the way Lincoln sometimes took of conveying a 
really serious thought. 

At that period of the war and until the battle of 
Gettysburg, twa years later, Southern leaders 
acted upon the theory that the people of the 
North were greatly divided in their sympathies, 
and that the "Copperheads" would either devel- 
op suflScient strength to stop the war; or, in the 
event of invasion of the Northern States, they 
would take up arms in support of the Confederacy. 
John Morgan's raid into Ohio encouraged that 
behef, although he was captured and imprisoned; 
but the utter indifference shown by the Pennsyl- 
vania "Copperheads," who had talked loudest in 
favor of the Southern cause, completely disillu- 
sioned the Confederate chiefs. Vallandigham and 
Voorhees were shown to be without great influ- 
ence. I had a direct statement from a member of 
the Lincoln Cabinet that the President did not 
approve of Vallandigham 's arrest by General 
Burnside, or his trial by court-martial and ban- 
ishment to the Southern lines. Lincoln declared 
the proceedings to be those of an over-zealous 
general. 

Defeat after defeat of the Northern forces fol- 
lowed that of Big Bethel. The raw volunteers 

59 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

from the Northern States could not successfully 
oppose the better-trained Southern troops, led by 
West Point graduates. 

Mr. Lincoln never lost heart; his courage never 
abated during those terrible months, while many 
men close to him were in a mental condition of 
dismay and panic. 

The day of Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg 
Lincoln spent hours in the office of the War 
Department in dressing-gown and slippers, for- 
getting even to eat. When he heard of the great 
disaster he bowed his head in despair, and mur- 
mured, "If there is any man out of perdition who 
suffers more than I do, I pity him." 

Sufficient credit was never given to Thurlow 
Weed for his successful efforts in England to pre- 
vent recognition of the Confederacy. Mr. Lincoln 
described Weed as "a master of masters in poli- 
tics," and sent him on that difficult mission late 
in 1861 when the situation looked very dark. Our 
able minister at the court of St. James's, Charles 
Francis Adams, possessed Mr. Lincoln's entire con- 
fidence, but the President deemed it advisable to 
have a special commissioner to present his protest 
against the apprehended British recognition of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

The day before Mr. Weed's departure I met him 
in the rotunda of the old Astor House, and found 
him imbued with more hope than I felt, regarding 

60 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

the conflict with the South. Of course, he made 
no mention of his intended mission to England, 
thinking that he could get away without the fact 
becoming known. He was disappointed, however, 
as the day following his departure all the news- 
papers published the news of his special embassy. 
There were no Atlantic cables in those days, and 
by prompt action on his arrival he managed to 
hold his first interview with Lord Russell before 
official information reached the British Cabinet 
from Washington regarding the purpose of his 
presence in London. 

Henry Ward Beecher also visited England at 
Mr. Lincoln's request, possibly at the suggestion 
of John Bright, who was almost the only promi- 
nent Briton who remained friendly to the Federal 
cause. Gladstone, Palmerston, and Disraeli were 
at that time in open sympathy with the Con- 
federacy. 

Mr. Beecher's mission was wholly unofficial, and 
his efforts were devoted to delivering addresses, 
such as only he could make, throughout England. 
These speeches and Mr. Weed's efforts created 
such a wave of popular sentiment in behalf of 
the Federal cause that the British Cabinet, if ever 
it had the purpose, was deterred from recog- 
nizing the States in rebellion. It was the same 
kind of moral suasion employed by Gladstone 
prior to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and 

61 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

which prevented England from going to the de- 
fense of Turkey, then her ally. 

The relief experienced through General Lee's 
defeat at Gettysburg and his retreat across Mary- 
land into Virginia was followed, ten days later 
(July, 1863), by the draft riots in New York. 

The horrors of those three days have never been 
fully described. 

Led and encouraged by Southern sympathizers, 
who had retained the feelings they held before the 
war, the rabble of the city surged through the 
streets, destroying property, burning a negro 
orph'an-asylum, and killing black men. Nomi- 
nally a protest against enforced enlistment, the 
riots were really an uprising of the dangerous 
element that existed in the city at the time. 

I lived in Thirty-fourth Street, near Eighth 
Avenue, and had been a persistent speaker against 
the extension of slavery and in favor of the 
Federal cause. The day before the riots began, an 
anonymous note was received by my family, 
stating that our home would be attacked and that 
we had best leave the city. We did not heed the 
warning. 

On the first day of the riots, July 13, 1863, a 
crowd gathered in front of my house, shouting: 
"Down with the abolitionists!" "Death to Dit- 
tenhoefer!" I sent a messenger for the police, and 
a squad arrived as the leaders of the mob were 

62 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

preparing to break in my door. Active club work 
dispersed the crowd, and by order of the captain 
of the precinct several policemen were kept on 
guard until the end of the riots. 

It was at this time that I met Mrs. Carson, the 
daughter of the only Union man in South Caro- 
lina, who, with her father, was compelled, after 
the firing on Fort Sumter, to leave South Carolina, 
while his property was confiscated. I had been 
anxious to sell my house in Thirty-fourth Street. 
Noticing a "For Sale" sign on the property, Mrs. 
Carson called on me and expressed a willingness 
to buy the house at the price named, asking me to 
see Samuel Blatchford, who in later years became 
a Supreme Court Judge of the United States, and 
who, she said, was the head of an association rais- 
ing funds for her support in New York. I saw 
Judge Blatchford, and a contract was signed for 
the sale. Later, in consequence of the serious ill- 
ness of my wife, I was obliged to ask Judge Blatch- 
ford to cancel the contract, saying that, by way of 
making up for the disappointment, I would gladly 
contribute a sum of money to the fund for Mrs. 
Carson. The contract was accordingly canceled. 
I never saw Mrs. Carson afterward. About a year 
before the close of the rebellion, Mr. Lincoln of- 
fered to appoint me judge of the district court of 
South CaroHna, my native State, but my increas- 
ing business in the city of New York and the 

63 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

disinclination of my wife to move to South Caro- 
lina compelled me to decline the honor. 

A little while before the offer of the Carolina 
judgeship was made me by the President I re- 
ceived a letter signed by Mrs. Carson, in which 
the writer said that the President had asked her 
to recommend a man for the position, and, remem- 
bering what I had done years before, she had 
suggested my name to him. For a long time I 
could not think who Mrs. Carson could be, until 
my wife reminded me of the incident of the sale 
of the house. 

Patriotic neglect of self-interest in behalf of the 
salvation of the Union caused thousands of 
Northerners to lose opportunities for accumulat- 
ing wealth from the vast sums of money disbursed 
by the Government; but there was a class at home 
and in Congress that neglected no chance to en- 
rich itself. Its leaders were more concerned about 
the commercial phase of the conflict than the 
triumph of the Federal arms. 

They gambled on the destiny of the Republic, 
and their sources of information reached to the 
innermost sanctuaries of Government depart- 
ments. 

On advance information of a staggering defeat 
to the Northern arms, they bought gold for a rise. 
Early news of a Federal victory caused them to 
sell the precious metal for a decline. This transac- 

64 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

tion was described by these gamblers in the 
nation's Hfe-blood as "coppering old Lincoln." 

This detestable clan pushed its representatives 
into the very councils of state, asserting its right 
to dictate the policy of the country, foreign and 
domestic. Its members were as intolerably arro- 
gant as if they had amassed their wealth by the 
strictest integrity. 

During a great part of the war President Lin- 
coln, unsuspected by him, was surrounded by a 
coterie of professional heroes, commercial grafters, 
and alleged statesmen, every one of whom was in 
politics for personal profit. Many " shining lights " 
then lauded for their patriotism have long since 
been exposed as selfish and corrupt egotists. 
Close as some of these unworthy persons con- 
trived to get to Mr. Lincoln, they were never 
able to besmirch him in any way. 

During one of my visits to the White House 
some weeks before the promulgation of the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation, I had the temerity to refer 
to the oft-reported plan of Mr. Lincoln, before the 
rebellion burst upon the country, to free the 
Southern slaves by purchase. It was a theme 
that had often engaged my thoughts. After the 
beginning of the war and a realization that the 
conflict was costing more than $1,000,000 per day, 
I had become somewhat reconciled to the idea. 
Mr. Lincoln was slow to answer, saying, in 

5 65 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

effect, that however wise the idea might have 
been, it was too late to revive it. He did not in- 
timate that he had in contemplation the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation which was to take effect 
January 1, 1863. 

Mr. Lincoln had all the figm^es about slave 
property at his finger-ends, but, much to my 
regret, I did not make a memorandum of the in- 
terview and, therefore, cannot recall the exact 
number of slaves that he estimated would have to 
be purchased. Field hands were valued at from six 
hundred to one thousand dollars each, but the 
old men and women and young children would 
reduce the average price. This would have ab- 
sorbed $500,000,000, a sum that, prior to the ex- 
perience of one year's war expenditure, would 
have appeared staggering. When, however, Mr. 
Lincoln called attention to the rapidly growing 
national debt, with no prospect of ending the con- 
flict for years to come, he exclaimed : 

"What a splendid investment it would have 
been!" 

These words, as the mentally distressed Lincoln 
uttered them in that dark hour of the Civil War, 
were of thrilling import. He rose to his full 
height; my eyes instinctively traced his majestic 
length from his slippers to his head of iron-gray 
hair, and there was an expression of sadness in his 
face that I never shall forget. 

66 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

Referring to the severe criticisms that were 
launched against him respecting the views he 
entertained about the reconstruction of the Union, 
he said: 

"I do the best I can, and I mean to keep doing 
so until the end. If the end brings me out all 
right, what is said against me won't amount to 
anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten 
angels swearing I was right would make no 
difference." 

The entrance of a delegation prevented a con- 
tinuance of the conversation. Years afterward. 
Col. A. K. McClure told me that as late as August, 
prior to the November elections of 1864, President 
Lincoln had recurred to his plan for freeing the 
negroes by purchase, and settling the war on the 
basis of universal extinction of slavery in all 
States of the Union at an expense of $400,000,000, 
a compromise which he believed the Southern 
leaders, in their hopeless condition after the battle 
of Gettysburg, would be glad to accept. Mr. 
Lincoln went on to predict that the promulgation 
of such a scheme at that time would defeat his re- 
election. McClure not only confirmed him in that 
opinion, but added that Congress was in no 
mood to appropriate so large a sum of money. 

Redemption of these bonds, if the Union was 
restored after the war, would fall in part on the 
Southern people; they would be paying out of 

67 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

their own pockets for the Hberation of their 
slaves. This statement of McClure's is remark- 
able because it indicates that Lincoln believed that 
the status quo ante helium could be restored and 
reconstruction formalities avoided. Unfortunately, 
under Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the 
Presidency after Lincoln's assassination, and sub- 
sequently under President Hayes, the "carpet- 
bag" regime, with all its horrors and corruption, 
was inflicted upon the Southern States. 

Colonel McClure's judgment was keen and 
accurate. Congress, led by Senator Sumner and 
Representatives Thaddeus Stevens and Henry 
Winter Davis, would have repudiated such a 
proposition if made by Lincoln. Even after his 
re-election he could not have secured the money 
for that purpose. 

Mr. Carpenter, who made the famous painting 
of the Cabinet when Mr. Lincoln read the draft 
of the Emancipation Proclamation, and who was 
a client of mine, told me Mr. Lincoln had said to 
him that for a long time he had been considering 
the necessity of eventually issuing the Proclama- 
tion; but that he was held back by the intense 
desire that was always in his mind to restore the 
Union, and his fear that if he proclaimed eman- 
cipation prematurely the restoration of the Union 
would be prevented. During his entire adminis- 
tration and in all his addresses this desire to re- 

68 



STRESS AND STRAIN 

store the Union was supreme and it controlled his 
every action. 

On the momentous occasion when Lincoln read 
the preliminary draft of his Emancipation Proc- 
lamation before his Cabinet, he amused himself 
and the others — with the exception of Secretary 
Stanton, who was plainly amazed at the Presi- 
dent's seeming levity — by first reading to them 
from Artemas Ward's amusing story of "The High- 
Handed Outrage at Utica." 

Later on I remember having been present when 
Lincoln said, "If my name is ever remiembered 
it will be for this act; my whole soul is in it." 

It is curious, the thing we call history. An act 
popularly regarded as madness at one period is 
hailed as concrete wisdom at another. History 
is only a crystallization of popular beliefs. 

Many people very close to Lincoln have doubted 
his sympathy for the slaves, and have referred to 
his frequent characterization of abolitionists as 
"a disturbing element in the nation, that ought 
to be subjected to some sort of control." They 
assert that his efforts were directed solely to re- 
straining the ambitions of the slaveholders to 
extend their system of human bondage over larger 
areas of the United States. 

Such judgment of Lincoln is at variance with 

my personal observations and does him a grave 

injustice. His nature was essentially sympathetic, 

• 69 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

although he never went the length of asserting 
that he regarded the black man as his social equal. 

Subsequent observation has shown me that the 
immediate admission of the liberated slaves to 
equal rights of franchise was an error. 

It revived the former bitterness with which the 
Southern people had regarded the Northerners, 
and imposed a grievous injustice upon them, an 
injustice naturally and forcibly resented. And so 
followed the formation of the "Invisible Empire" 
and the excesses of the " Ku-Klux Klan." 



VIII 

THE RENOMINATION 

THE renomination of Mr. Lincoln in 1864 was 
not accomplished with ease. The difficulties 
did not all show upon the surface, because some 
of the President's closest associates were secretly 
conspiring against him. Open and frank oppo- 
sition came from such influential Republicans as 
Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, Benjamin F. 
Wade, of Ohio, and Horace Greeley, of New York, 
who believed his re-election impossible. But the 
opposition of Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, was 
secret, as he had been scheming for the nomina- 
tion himself. Chase, while regarding himself as 
Mr. Lincoln's friend and constantly protesting his 
friendship to the President, held a condescending 
opinion of Mr. Lincoln's intellect. He could not 
believe the people so blind as to prefer Abraham 
Lincoln to Salmon Chase. He vigorously pro- 
tested, both verbally and in letters written to 
every part of the country, his indifference to the 
Presidency, at the same time painting pessimistic- 

71 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

ally the dreadful state of government affairs, and 
indicating, not always subtly, his willingness to 
accept the nomination. 

As to Chase's candidacy, Lincoln once said, 
according to Nicolay: "I have determined to shut 
my eyes as far as possible to everything of the 
sort. Mr. Chase makes a good secretary and I 
shall keep him where he is." Then with charac- 
teristic magnanimity, he added: "If Chase be- 
comes President, all right. I hope we may never 
have a worse man." But as Joseph Medill, editor 
of the Chicago Tribune, wrote in December, 1863: 

I presume it is true that Mr. Chase's friends are making 
for his nomination, but it is all lost labor; Old Abe has the 
inside track so completely that he will be nominated by 
acclamation when the convention meets. -■''" 

A reference here to the activities of Chase's 
brilliant daughter, Kate Chase Sprague, in the 
Tilden and Hayes contest many years later, may 
be pardoned. It is well known that through her 
potent influence the contest was finally decided 
in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, and against 
Samuel J. Tilden. This influence, it has been 
said, was used in a spirit of revenge against Mr, 
Tilden for defeating her father for the Democratic 
nomination in 1868. Col. A. K. McClure agrees 
with me in this, as will be shown by the follow- 
ing quotation from his book. Our Presidents and 

How We Make Them: 

72 



THE RENOMINATION 

The Democratic National Convention met in New York 
on the 4th of July, 1868. There was a strong sentiment 
among the delegates favorable to the nomination of a lib- 
eral Republican for President, but Chief -Justice Chase, who 
was an old-time Democrat and who had won a very large 
measure of Democratic confidence by his ruling in the im- 
peachment case of President Johnson, was a favorite with a 
very powerful circle of friends who had quietly, but very 
thoroughly, as they believed, organized to have him nomi- 
nated by a spontaneous tidal wave after a protracted dead- 
lock between the leading candidates. Chase would have 
been nominated at the time Seymour was chosen, and in like 
manner, had it not been for the carefully laid plan of Samuel 
J. Tilden to prevent the success of Chase. Tilden was a 
master leader, subtle as he was able, and he thoroughly 
organized the plan to nominate Seymour, not so much that 
he desired Seymour, but because he was implacable in his 
hostility to Chase. 

It was well known by Chase and his friends that Tilden 
crucified Chase in the Democratic convention of 1868, and 
this act of Tilden's had an impressive sequel eight years later 
when the election of Tilden hung in the balance in the Sen- 
ate, and when Kate Chase Sprague, the accomphshed 
daughter of Chase, decided the battle against Tilden. 

While Charles Sumner was openly for Lincoln, 
he privately criticized him, even after the pro- 
mulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation 
which had freed the slaves of the South. 

I have always believed that Lincoln did not 
consult with Sumner as to that message, and that 
that was the cause of his ill-feeling. Thaddeus 
Stevens, the great Free Soil representative of 

73 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Pennsylvania, was dissatisfied because the Presi- 
dent was unwilling to confiscate all the property of 
the secessionists and to inflict other punishments 
upon them: he was openly hostile to Lincoln. "■"' 
For the following hitherto unpublished letter, 
from Horace Greeley to Mark Howard, a promi- 
nent Connecticut Republican, I am indebted to 
the latter's daughter, Mrs. Graves. It throws 
an interesting light upon the fears and uncer- 
tainties of the period, and indicates Greeley's 
lack of confidence in Lincoln as the strong man 
of the nation. The letter is dated ten months 
before the second election, and Greeley's op- 
position to Mr. Lincoln's renomination became 
the more undisguised and intense as time went 
on. 

Office of The Tribune. 

New York, Jan. 10, I864. 

Dear Sir, — I mean to keep the Presidency in the back- 
ground until we see whether we cannot close up the war. 
I am terribly afraid of letting the war run into the next 
Presidential term; I fear it will prove disastrous to go to 
the ballot-boxes with the war still pending. Let us have 
peace first, then we can see into the future. 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley. 
Mark Howard, Esq., 
Hartford, Conn. 

Horace Greeley gave open expression to his 
opposition in the New York Tribune, Friday, 

April 29, 1864. 

74 



THE RENOMINATION 

In this issue Mr. Greeley, referring to the 
statement of the President, "I claim not to have 
controlled events, but confess plainly that events 
have controlled me," declared that "had he been 
a little more docile to their teaching and prompt 
to apprehend their bearing we should have been 
saved many disasters and rivers of precious blood. 
May we hope that with regard to the murder of 
our soldiers who have surrendered, and other 
questions of the hour, he will have learned some- 
thing from the sore experience of the past.^" 

Other newspapers joined the Tribune in oppos- 
ing Lincoln's renomination, as witness these ex- 
cerpts from the New York Herald, August 6, 1864: 

Senator Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Davis, of 
Maryland, Chairman of the Senate and House Committees on 
the rebellious States prepared and presented in their official 
capacity an indictment against Abraham Lincoln, the ex- 
ecutive head of the nation, and the nominee of his party for 
another term of office, charging him with arrogance, igno- 
rance, usurpation, knavery, and a host of other deadly sins 
including that of hostility to the rights of humanity and to 
the principles of republican government. 

Mr. Lincoln has been frequently represented as entertain- 
ing and expressing an ardent wish that he could slip off his 
shoulders the anxieties and labors belonging to his present 
position and place upon them the musket and knapsack of a 
Union volunteer. The opportunity of realizing that wish 
now presents itself. The country would be overjoyed to 
see it realized, and all the people would say "Amen" to it. 
Let him make up his mind to join the quota which his town 

75 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

of Springfield, 111., will next be called on to furnish. He is 
said to have done well as railsplitter, and we have no doubt 
that he will do equally well as a soldier. As a President of the 
United States he must have sense enough to see and ac- 
knowledge he has been an egregious failure. The best thing 
he can do now for himself, his party, and his country is to 
retire from the high position to which, in an evil hour, he 
was exalted. 

One thing must be self-evident to him, and that is that 
under no circumstances can he hope to be the next President 
of the United States, and if he will only make a virtue of 
necessity and withdraw from the Presidential campaign . . . 

In the New York Tribune, August 24, 1864, un- 
der the heading, "Copperhead Treason," the Daily 
News is quoted as referring to President Lincoln 
as "our intriguing chief magistrate." 

Finally, there was general disaffection, center- 
ing largely in New York and St. Louis, and a so- 
called convention of opponents of Lincoln gathered 
at Cleveland in May, and indulged in denuncia- 
tion of Lincoln, which included a bitter letter from 
Wendell Phillips. This self-styled "radical De- 
mocracy " adopted a platform, nominated Fremont, 
and practically disappeared. 

The patriotic and self-sacrificing people of the 

North were almost a unit in sustaining President 

Lincoln, and, by sheer force of numbers, swept 

aside the ungrateful or designing Republican 

leaders who would have defeated the great 

emancipator. 

7« 



THE RENOMINATION 

During the days that immediately preceded his 
renomination, Mr. Lincoln gave way to despond- 
ency, and, although he never said so in words, one 
could clearly see by the anxiety he manifested 
that he was sorely perplexed to account for the 
animus of certain men against him. He appeared 
to be especially anxious about New York, and to 
fear that the enmity of Seward's old friends and 
the hostility of Mr. Greeley might cause him to 
lose the delegation from the Empire State. I was 
in Washington at that time on professional busi- 
ness, and was able to impart to him positive 
information regarding his strength in various parts 
of the State. To his inquiry about the situation 
in New York, I told him that, while Greeley was 
still in the sulks, yet I thought Seward and Weed 
were coming around to him (Lincoln) handsomely, 
and that their action would undoubtedly influence 
the Seward partisans. I added that in my opinion 
Greeley would before long forget his disappoint- 
ment and fall into line. Mr. Lincoln listened at- 
tentively and nodded assent. "That's good news," 
he said, heartily, seemingly well pleased with my 
prognostications. 

Col. A. K. McClure, of Pennsylvania, stood 
very close to the President at this time and did 
not disguise from him the treachery of several 
Republican leaders.- 

Anxiety had become an obsession with the 

77 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

President. This seemed due to a physical and 
mental reaction after three years of incessant 
worry and strain. And yet at this hour General 
Grant appeared to be smashing his way through 
the Wilderness, toward Richmond; General Sher- 
man had left Chattanooga on his march to the 
sea by which the Confederacy was cut in two; 
the dashing Sheridan was harassing the enemy in 
the Shenandoah Valley, and the collapse of the 
rebellion was foreshadowed. 

I am sure Mr. Lincoln cared but little for his 
own political future, but he was most desirous of 
carrying out his plans regarding reconstruction, 
and the frankness with which he had spoken his 
views on the subject made enemies of such men 
as Greeley, Sumner, and Stevens. Had he dis- 
sembled, concealing his sympathies for the suffer- 
ing civilian population in the South who had taken 
no active part in the rebellion, until such time as 
he could properly lay his plans before Congress and 
explain them, hostility against him would have 
been confined to a few politicians actuated by 
envy or personal ambition. 

But Mr. Lincoln made no secret of his desire 
for the prompt reorganization of the seceded 
States, immediately peace was attained; and for 
their readmission into the Union, with represen- 
tation in both Houses of Congress, thus carrying 
out the thought always uppermost in his mind of 

78 



THE RENOMINATION 

the restoration of the Union. And yet his sorrows, 
worriments, and perplexities could not drown his 
sense of humor, as the following occurrence shows : 

A conference was held on shipboard in Hamp- 
ton Roads about the time that the collapse of the 
Confederacy seemed imminent, the consultants in- 
cluding the Vice-President of the Confederacy, 
Alexander H. Stevens, and R. M. T. Hunter and 
J. A. Campbell, on the one side, and Mr. Lincoln 
and Mr. Seward on the other. 

Mr. Hunter, to enforce his contentions, referred 
to the correspondence between Charles the First, 
of England, and Parliament. 

"Mr. Lincoln's face," it is reported, "wore the 
inscrutable expression which generally preceded 
his hardest hits," as he replied: "Upon questions 
of history I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he 
is posted in such things, and I do not profess to 
be; my only distinct recollection of the matter is 
that Charles lost his head." 

Under the reconstruction policy planned by the 
great President and carried out by his successor. 
President Johnson, the rebel States were taken 
back in the Union with the same representation 
in Congress they had before they started on the 
war of secession. 

To obviate the danger which would arise from 
the control of the Southern States by the unre- 
pentant rebels, and to minimize the danger that 

79 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

might result from the large number of members 
they would have in Congress, it was deemed nec- 
essary to give the illiterate and shiftless negroes, 
just emerging from slavery, and who constituted a 
majority of the voters in many of the Southern 
States, the right to vote. 

This resulted in the detestable State govern- 
ments composed of negroes and "carpet-bag" 
whites, no less corrupt than the negroes. The 
whites were called "carpet-baggers," because they 
came from the North, with no intention of re- 
maining permanently; they only wanted to ex- 
ploit the South for their own profit; and they 
generally traveled in light marching order, with 
all their worldly possessions packed in the familiar 
carpet-bag of the period. 

Sumner, Stevens, and Winter Davis opposed 
this reconstruction policy, contending that the 
rebel States should be held as conquered territory 
until a new generation should arrive on the scene. 

I did not hesitate to say at the time that they 
were right. Had their policy been adopted the 
terrible evils of the "carpet-bag" governments 
would have been avoided. 

In the last conversation I had with Mr. Lincoln 
on the subject of his renomination, about ten 
days before the convention of 1864, I tried to 
convince him that his doubts and fears were un- 
warranted, but I did not succeed in lightening the 

80 



THE RENOMINATION 

gloom. He probably thought me too young a 
man to form an accurate opinion, but I had in- 
vestigated for myself, as well as advised with the 
best-informed Republicans in my State. It 
seemed as though he could not forget that previous 
miraculous nomination by a convention in which 
two-thirds of the delegates favored another can- 
didate; he feared lest now the boot might be on 
the other leg. 

^ The Republican National Convention assembled 
at Baltimore on June 7, 1864, the aged Rev. Dr. 
Robert J. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, being tem- 
porary chairman, and ex-Governor William Den- 
nison, of Ohio, permanent presiding officer. 

All opposition melted away when the platform 
was read and adopted. The third plank therein 
denounced "slavery as the cause of the rebellion, 
always and everywhere hostile to principles of 
republican government; therefore, national safety 
demands its utter and complete extirpation from 
the soil of the Republic." 

Mr. Lincoln was renominated on the first 
ballot, receiving the unanimous vote of every 
State, with the exception of Missouri, the del- 
egation from which State was instructed for Gen- 
eral Grant. The Missouri vote was at once 
changed to Lincoln, making the nomination 
unanimous. 

At that convention I circulated among the rep- 

6 81 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

resentatives from other States, and overheard 
many mutterings of dissatisfaction at the inevi- 
tability of the choice, but not a hostile word was 
spoken from the rostrum. I joined with delegates 
from my State in addressing a message of con- 
gratulation to Mr. Lincoln at Washington. - 
^ Greeley, of course, was obliged to come around 
to support Lincoln's re-election, but he could not 
refrain from damning him with faint praise. 

Under the caption of "Opening the Presidential 
Campaign," Mr. Greeley, in the Tribune of Feb- 
ruary 23, 1864, thus indicated his change of front 
toward Mr. Lincoln: 

He has been patriotic, honest, and faithful. He has done 
his utmost to serve and save the country. . . . He is not 
infallible, not a genius, not one of those rare, great men 
who mould their age into the similitude of their own high 
character, massive abilities, and lofty aims. But, consider- 
ing his antecedents and his experience of public affairs we 
are sure the verdict of history in his case will be ^'well done, 
thou good and faithful servant." The luster of his good 
deeds will far ouUive the memory of his mistakes and faults. 

Perhaps Greeley stood too close to his subject, 
but surely these condescending words may be 
considered a masterpiece of ineptitude. 

Nor was Mr. Greeley averse to reprinting hos- 
tile criticisms from outside sources, as the following 
excerpts will witness: 

In the New York Tribune, June 21, 1864, under 

82 



THE RENOMINATION 

the heading, "Rebel Views of our Nomination — 
A Railsplitter and a Tailor," the Richmond Ex- 
aminer is quoted as saying: 

The Convention of Black Republicans in Baltimore have 
nominated for President of their country Abraham Lincoln, 
the Illinois railsplitter. 

The great army of contractors and office-holders — in 
short, those who live by war and on the country — have 
succeeded, at least, in starting Lincoln fairly for another 
race. It amounts to a declaration that those conventioners 
desire to see four years more in all respects like unto the 
last four years. 

Another extract from the Richmond Examiner 
also appears in the Tribune at about the same 
date: 

The only merit we can discover in this Baltimore ticket is 
the merit of consistency; it is all of a piece; the tail does not 
shame the head, nor the head shame the tail. A railsplitting 
buffoon and a boorish tailor, both from the backwoods. Both 
growing up in uncouth ignorance, they would afford a gro- 
tesque subject for a satiric poet. 

I had known from the President's own lips, at 
my last interview, that he desired the selection of 
Andrew Johnson, a Tennessean, whose steadfast 
support of the Federal cause in these troublesome 
times had attracted attention. I was not in sym- 
pathy with that plan, because I thought that 
Johnson would cost the party many votes among 
the radicals in New England. 

83 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Nobody could forecast at that time with reason- 
able certainty the Democratic candidates, and 
there was considerable fear that General Grant 
might be named. He was popularly believed to 
be bringing the rebellion to an early finish; if he 
succeeded in forcing the capitulation of General 
Lee before the Democratic convention met in 
Chicago at the end of August, the opposition party 
might seize upon him and could probably elect 
him. Grant had been an old-line Democrat and, 
so far as known, had voted for Douglas in 1860. 
There was no political reason why Grant could 
not accept such a nomination. 

In June, General McClellan's name had not 
been seriously considered. He was a man with a 
grievance, for he had been removed from the 
command of the Federal Army after a long en- 
durance of his procrastinating policy by the ad- 
ministration. The universal affection felt for 
McClellan throughout the Northern Army, es- 
pecially the Army of the Potomac, seems dijQScult 
of explanation. / 



IX 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864 

THE campaign for the Republican ticket began 
before the name of the Democratic candidate 
was known. Speakers were haranguing the people 
in every Northern State, but if Mr. Lincoln's 
doubts about his renomination had been serious, 
his fear of defeat at the polls developed into a 
veritable mental panic. Both Nicolay and Gideon 
Welles refer to the following note, which, in- 
dorsed on the back by all the Cabinet members, 
was sealed and committed to the keeping of the 
Secretary of the Navy, with instructions that it 
should not be opened until after election. I be- 
lieve that the original has been presented by Miss 
Nicolay to the Library of Congress: 

This morning, as for some days past, it seemed improbable 
that this administration will be re-elected. Then it will be 
my duty to co-operate with the President-elect so as to save 
the Union between the election and the inauguration, as 
my successor will have secured his election on such grounds 
that he cannot possibly save it afterwards. 

August 23, 1864- A. Lincoln. 

85 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

It will be seen that this remarkable document 
bears date six days before the assembling of the 
Democratic convention at Chicago, on August 29. 
At that time Mr. Lincoln was aware of the plan 
to nominate McClellan, and feared his strength. 

In the interval between the Republican con- 
vention, early in June, and the gathering of the 
Democrats at the end of August, the progress of 
the Federal arms had not realized expectations. 
Grant had not taken Richmond, and Sherman had 
not administered a decisive blow to General 
Johnson. 

Politically, the situation was somewhat more 
hopeful. The selection of Andrew Johnson as Vice- 
President on the Republican ticket had conciliated 
many Northern Democrats like Judge Holt, Gen- 
eral Dix, and General Butler; moreover, it had 
prevented recognition of the Confederacy by 
France and England. Lincoln's foresight in sub- 
stituting the Tennessean for Hannibal Hamlin, of 
Maine, was generally admitted. 

McClellan developed more strength than was 
suspected. The best opinion is that, had the elec- 
tion occurred directly after his nomination and 
before people had had opportunity to study the 
platform upon which he had consented to stand, he 
would have been successful. Soon after the Demo- 
cratic convention adjourned, however, the cap- 
ture of Atlanta by Sherman was announced; then 

86 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864 

followed the sturdy blows of Grant at the Confed- 
erate capital and Sheridan's series of victories 
in the Shenandoah Valley. These happy events 
completely changed the political attitude of the 
country. 

The Democratic managers at Chicago had com- 
mitted the execrable blunder of declaring in their 
platform that the war had been a failure and that 
the public welfare demanded "an immediate effort 
be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view 
to an ultimate convention of all the States." 

Little more than two months remained before 
election day in November, and every speaker that 
could be commandeered was put into active 
service. Lincoln himself took no active part in 
the campaign outside of a few addresses to sol- 
diers, but mass-meetings were held every day and 
night of the week, and popular preachers with 
Republican sympathies filled their discourses with 
appeals in behalf of Lincoln and the necessity of 
his re-election for the preservation of the Union. 
Henry Ward Beecher became a tower of strength 
to the Lincoln cause, and in and out of Plymouth 
pulpit he advocated the duty of sustaining the 
administration that had already saved the Union 
and must ultimately put down the rebellion. I 
addressed meetings every night. 

The campaign soon became one of great acri- 
mony on both sides. Night and day, without 

87 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

cessation, young men like myself, in halls, upon 
street corners, and from cart-tails, were harang- 
uing, pleading, sermonizing, orating, arguing, ex- 
tolling our cause and our candidate, and denounc- 
ing our opponents. A deal of oratory, elocution, 
rhetoric, declamation, and eloquence was hurled 
into the troubled air by speakers on both sides. 

Denunciation of Lincoln by Democratic spell- 
binders was of the bitterest character. News- 
papers affiliated with the anti-war party criticized 
every act of the administration and belittled the 
conduct of the war by Federal generals in the field. 
Therefore, Republican speakers did not mince 
words in criticism of the Democratic Presidential 
candidate. Gen. George B. McClellan. 

On September 27, five weeks before election 
day, I spoke to an audience that filled every seat 
in Cooper Institute, on the questions of the hour. 
Read in the calmness of to-day my language ap- 
pears unwarrantedly aggressive, but at that time 
it seemed conservative. As an example of the 
spirit of the campaign I venture to quote a few 
extracts: 

The battle that will be fought in November between the 
Union and the Confederate forces north of the Potomac will 
end in the destruction or exhaustion of the Southern Confed- 
eracy. Abraham Lincoln is the commander of the Union 
forces. I will now prove that George B. McClellan is the 
leader of the Confederate forces. 

88 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864 

While at the head of the Army, McClellan attempted to 
dictate to President Lincohi a poHcy acceptable to the 
Confederate South. Every man in the North injfluenced by 
"Copperheads," who opposed the war, demanded that this 
"fighting general" be replaced at the head of our armies. 
He had become harnessed to the slave power, and he, with 
General Pendleton, candidate for Vice-President, became 
the incarnation of the Democratic peace platform. 

McClellan's nomination was received with enthusiasm and 
cheers by the Confederate soldiers; the Southern newspapers 
declared that McClellan's election would be helped by 
Grant's defeat in the field. Confederate bonds advanced on 
the announcement of McClellan's nomination. Every 
Southern sympathizer in the North, passive or active in his 
devotion to Jefferson Davis, will vote for McClellan. 

He says in his letter of acceptance that his sentiments are 
identical with those of the platform which pronounced the 
war a failure, and he promised, if the Democratic candidate 
were elected, an immediate cessation of hostilities. 

I called attention to the fact that such men as 
Fernando Wood, Vallandigham, and Horatio Sey- 
mour, once Governor of New York, supported 
McClellan, thus indorsing the letter of accept- 
ance, in which he promises to enforce the policy 
set forth in the peace platform of his party. 

McClellan's military career, consistent with his whole 
history, may be summed up in one word — "delay" — which 
gave to the Confederacy what it needed — time. Is it not 
then true that McClellan heads, in this campaign, the Con- 
federate forces North? 

I then read the following excerpt from the 
Democratic platform: 

89 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

Resolved, that this Convention does explicitly declare, as 
the sense of the American people, that after four years of 
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war during 
which, under the pretense of a military necessity for a war- 
power higher than the Constitution, the Constitution itself 
has been disregarded in every part; and public liberty and 
private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity 
of the country essentially impaired, justice, humanity, liberty, 
and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be 
made for the cessation of hostilities, with a view to the 
ultimate convention of the States or other peaceful means, to 
the end that at the earliest practicable moment peace may 
be restored on the basis of Federal Union of the States. 
Resolved, that the direct interference of the military author- 
ities of the United States in the recent elections held in 
Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shame- 
ful violation of the Constitution and a repetition of such acts 
in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary and 
resisted with all the means and power under our control. 

In other words [I resumed], it was a bold and pernicious 
declaration of hostilities that war should close at once and 
that a convention should be called at a later period, to revise 
the Constitution. But it is easy to comprehend that when 
such a convention should be called, Jefferson Davis would 
refuse to enter its doors, and be prepared to enforce his 
refusal. 

Jefferson Davis, his resources crippled and with his last 
levies on the firing-line, is naturally anxious that Lincoln 
be defeated, for he knows, by this time, that with Lincoln 
as President the Confederacy will be compelled to abandon 
a hopeless contest. Davis cannot, and will not, continue 
the fight if Lincoln is re-elected, notwithstanding his threat 
to "fight to the last ditch." 

90 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864 

Lincoln's re-election will banish all hope of triumph for 
the Confederacy. A firm and everlasting peace will follow, 
based upon a reconstructed Union and freedom everywhere. 
The American Union, strong, powerful, and freed from 
slavery, will be honored the world over. 

*'Be it storm, or summer weather. 
Peaceful calm or battle jar. 
Stand in beauteous strength together. 
Sister States as once ye were." 

Large sums of money were expended in expen- 
sive printing during that campaign. Some of the 
publications were elaborately designed and illus- 
trated. Recently one of the Lincoln and Johnson 
posters has been presented to me, and the minia- 
ture reproduction on the following page should 
be of interest. 

The names of the electors for the State of New 
York include that of the writer. The poster is 
printed in several colors, it is five feet high and 
three and one-half feet wide. It is in a perfect 
state of preservation. 

As I have indicated, the victories of Sheridan 
and Sherman produced a revulsion against peace 
sentiment throughout the North that literally 
swamped McClellan. The popular vote was 
large, Lincoln securing 2,213,665 votes, and Mc- 
Clellan 1,802,237 votes. Except among the troops 
from Pennsylvania and Kentucky, the soldier 
vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Lincoln. 
This was a surprise. 

91 




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Poster for Uncohrd Second Presidential Campaign. 



THE CAMPAIGN OP 1864 

It is interesting to illustrate the growth of our 
country by a comparison with the popular vote of 
1912 when Wilson received 6,291,776 votes, Taft 
3,481,119, and Roosevelt 4,106,247. 

Of the electoral votes, Lincoln received 212, and 
McClellan only 21. Until the defeat of Mr. Taft 
by Woodrow Wilson in 1912, this was a record of 
defeat. In the latter year Mr. Wilson received 
435 votes, Mr. Taft 15, and Mr. Roosevelt 81. 

The electoral ticket for Lincoln having been 
successful in New York State, the thirty-three 
electors, of whom I was one, met at Albany and 
cast the votes of the State for Abraham Lincoln 
and Andrew Johnson. 

The ballots were inscribed on wooden blocks, 
and read as follows: 

President, Abraham Lincoln 
and underneath, in brackets, 

[Abram J. Dittenhoefer] Elector 

A few weeks later I took one of these wooden 
block ballots with me to Washington and showed 
it to the President. He asked me if I would not 
give it to him as a souvenir, which I was very glad 
to do. 

Horace Greeley and Preston King were the two 
electors -at -large. Although Greeley had vio- 
lently opposed the renomination of Lincoln, wise 

93 



HOW WE ELECTED LINCOLN 

counsels put him at the head of the Presidential 
electors, a compliment that Mr. Greeley told me 
highly gratified him, in view of his previous atti- 
tude toward the President. *^ 

When Mr. Greeley became the Democratic can- 
didate for President in 1872 and many Repub- 
licans seceded from the Republican party, Mr. 
Greeley requested me to act as chairman of the 
executive committee of the Liberal Republican 
Central Committee in New York City, and I 
consented to do so. Chauncey M. Depew, who 
also identified himself with the Liberal Republi- 
can organization, became the candidate of the 
party for Secretary of State of New York. I after- 
ward regretted that I had joined in that move- 
ment, and my regret was intensified when Greeley's 
campaign turned out to be so great a fiasco. 

Lincoln's assassination, April 12, 1865, thwarted 
the generous, noble-hearted plans which he had 
devised for the restoration of the Union, and re- 
sulted in imposing upon the Southern people by 
Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, the corrupt 
"carpet-bag" regime. 

Lincoln's place in the history of civilization is 
immutably fixed. During the last ten years of his 
career, he was the greatest of all living men. As 
statesman and reformer he belongs not alone to 
America, but to the whole world. 

George Washington established this Republic, 

94 



THE CAMPAIGN OF 1864 

but the curse of human slavery adhered to the 
otherwise splendid Government he was so largely 
instrumental in creating. 

Abraham Lincoln eradicated this curse. 

Halleck's verse comes back to me again as I 
close these recollections: 

One of the few, the immortal names 
That were not born to die! 



THE END 



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